


i'd rather lose my limb (than let you come to harm)

by bluebacchus



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 1910s slang, 69 (Sex Position), Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - World War I, Blood and Gore, Blow Jobs, Chickens, Dealing with disability, Drug Use, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Gay Rights, Multi, Mutual Pining, Northern slang, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Violence, Wedding Night, Weddings, a passionate night of pants-on cuddling, animal death i suppose, dave katz cries during sex, diagnostic boners, don't be afraid of the 20th century rpf tag it's not weird if it's war poets, gangrene, queer characters of colour, trench typical lice infestation, wilfred owen is baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-04-11 15:00:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 63,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19112059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus
Summary: When a butterfly flaps its wings, a hurricane is created on the other side of the world. When a bus driver gets distracted and hits a pothole, a briefcase is dropped, a man disappears in a flash of blue light, and a time machine picks up an unwitting passenger from the jungles of Vietnam.Or, how Klaus and Dave find each other in a corner of a foreign field in Flanders, 1917. (WWI AU)OR, A story of love, war, and chickens.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fun writing exercise to get me back into writing fiction after a heavy year of academia. Now it’s at 50K words and growing because I love this series so much and I just want these two nerds to be disgustingly in love with each other. It's going to get a bit wacky from here but bear with me because there will be undying declarations of love, slow dancing, and war poets eventually. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: (Mentions of) graphic violence, PTSD, Northern Slang, Manly Guys Talking About Manly Things, Petty theft of poultry, minor character death (of a chicken)
> 
> Once more unto the breach, my friends!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part I: Klaus finds himself in the middle of a war zone, invents manscaping, and steals the last chicken in Belgium.

His towel unravelled as he fell from the rafters of the barn, so the first impression the 1st battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment, billeted in a barn with half the roof burned away from an errant shell fired from the middle of nowhere, Belgium, had of Klaus Hargreeves was one of shock, awe, and incredible confusion.

 

 The heavy thud he landed with awoke the soldiers who were sleeping restlessly on piles of straw. Between the time he took to say _ouch_ to the time it took to push himself into a sitting position, there were at least ten revolvers pointed at him, and one man with a tiny moustache in the corner brandishing a rusty scythe that he held out straight in front of him like an army-standard Gandalf.

 

“Hey,” said Klaus, raising the palm tattooed with ‘hello’. He then lowered it to his lap and covered up his dick. Second impressions were just as important as first impressions, after all.

 

“What’s your name, naked man?” one of the revolver men said. He looked mean.

 

“Uh, Klaus,” said Klaus.

 

Another of the men snorted. “Kraut?” he said (or so Klaus thought. His accent was such that it sounded more like a sneeze). “’E’s a bloody spy!”

 

Klaus looked around in alarm at the circle of soldiers surrounding him. Their uniforms looked like they’d been washed in a spin cycle with a pot of begonias; brown and red splotches were so engrained in the wool that they looked like part of the fabric. Their pants were covered in mud up to the knee, except for the boots. Their boots were shiny, as were their brass buttons. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he had a feeling that he had ended up far from home.

 

“No, wait,” Klaus said, throwing up the hand that was not covering his junk. “I’m just… passing through. Not a spy. I love you guys. Keep fighting the good fight.”

 

One of the soldiers who had not pulled his gun out entered the circle and stood beside Klaus. “Guys,” he said, holding out his hands in an effort to calm everyone, “if he was a German spy, why would he be giving us a German name?”

 

The soldier, who wore a tidier uniform and spoke with American accent, not a Northern one, looked pointedly at the man who had accused Klaus of being a spy. The man shrugged and said,

 

“What do we do with ‘im? We don’t ‘ave a bloody Hoosegow ‘ere.”

 

They all looked towards a man with dark hair and a bushy moustache. He thought for a moment, stroking his ample whiskers, then steepled his fingers and said simply,

 

“Confer.”

 

The men all nodded, and moved in a clump towards the back of the barn. Klaus was left sitting alone, balls out on the straw. He raised a pinky finger and asked,

 

“While you’re busy deciding, could I borrow a pair of pants?”

 

* * *

 

The soldiers decided it would be best to send Klaus out, accompanied by the American to “keep an eye on him”. Klaus didn’t mind; the American had given him an extra pair of pants and, though they didn’t fit on Klaus’s narrower hips, he improvised a belt and tied a strip of fabric into a nice bow. The man with the rusty scythe handed it to him and another of the men laughed and said something about puttees.

 

If the soldiers were wearing puttees, Klaus was in trouble. He was either on a movie set, or had somehow opened a magic briefcase and was sucked through time into the First World War. He wasn’t sure what was worse; the trenches or Hollywood.

 

“So,” the American started. “I saw the blue light.”

 

Klaus furrowed his brow. He was very confused. “I’m very confused,” he said.

 

The American stood next to him, leaning against the side of the barn. The night was dark and quiet. Klaus could see the outlines of houses against the horizon, but all the windows were dark.

 

“I came through it too. I-” the American sighed, and ran a hand through his curly brown hair. It looked soft. It contrasted with the strong angles of his jaw and the breadth of his shoulders, but was suited well to the earnest blue of his eyes. Klaus found himself looking a little bit too long as the other man struggled with what to say.

 

“I’m Dave,” he settled on, and offered a hand.

 

“I thought I was your prisoner,” Klaus said, shaking Dave’s hand anyways. His hands were calloused and strong. Klaus could feel the horny monkey part of his brain begging to be let out of its cage.

 

“You’re not. You won’t be.” Dave leaned back against the wood paneling and pulled out a tin of cigarettes. He offered one to Klaus. Klaus shrugged and accepted. Dave flipped open an old square lighter and lit Klaus’s cigarette, then his own. Klaus’s horny monkey brain started jumping up and down and throwing poop at his logical zookeeper brain.

 

“Do you know how to get back?” Dave asked. Klaus looked at him, suspicious. He didn’t know what Dave was implying. Dave must have understood, because he continued, “to your own time. To my own time. The future for me, and I’m guessing the future for you too. Do we all walk around naked in the future?”

 

Dave smiled after a second, and Klaus realized he had made a joke. About time travel.

 

“Ah.” Klaus said. “No. I was just being tortur- I was- I had a bath.”

 

“And about getting back?”

 

“No clue.”

 

“Oh.” Dave’s face fell into the most heartbreakingly sad expression and Klaus’s horny monkey brain broke free.

 

“But I have an idea. I know a guy.” It wasn’t quite a lie. Klaus _did_ suspect Five would know something about this. The only problem he had to solve, then, was that Five wasn’t here, and if what Hot American Dave was saying was true, Five wasn’t even born yet.

 

“I fell through from 1968,” Dave said, quietly. “It was dark, then all of a sudden this blue light just swallowed me up. I thought I was dead.”

 

“How?” Klaus asked. Did Dave have a briefcase too? Did he have it now? Actually, in that case, where did the briefcase that he dropped go? “Wait!” he exclaimed, as Dave shrugged. “I dropped the briefcase on the bus! And then it bounced, and flapped open a little bit! It must have picked you up, like an Uber.”

 

“What’s an Uber?” Dave asked. He didn’t look convinced. “Did you say the time machine was in a briefcase?”

 

“No, it _was_ the briefcase! I have it all figured out. We need to find the briefcase. Square. Black. Silver buckles. Probably covered in my blood.”

 

“What? Wait.” Dave paused for a moment. “No, actually that makes a lot sense.”

 

Klaus took a deep breath. At least it made sense to someone.

 

* * *

 

Within the hour, Klaus was lying on itchy straw inside the barn, an official member of the North Staffordshire Regiment. Dave had shook his hand, thrown an arm around his shoulders and led him inside with a bright smile plastered on his face.

 

“He’s from the American Field Service!” Dave exclaimed as he led Klaus back into the barn. “He was an ambulance driver like myself, and then decided to join up with the infantry. He got separated from his unit.”

 

“Why was he naked?” one of the men asked.

 

Klaus hadn’t prepared for this. He was concocting a story about selling his clothes for bread, but Dave cut him off.

 

“He was in the bath when a shell blew the building. All he had time to grab was this traditional Belgian garment.” He motioned to Klaus’s jacket, which was most definitely found in an American pawn shop and had a “made in Italy” tag on it. He was proud of that jacket; he had gone to pawn a moon rock he intercepted from Luther (for drugs, _obviously_ ) and found it, like it was a flame and he was a moth. Luckily, the pawn shop manager had no idea what a good jacket looked like and priced it like it was made in Bangladesh by children exploited under the American capitalist system. _Eat the rich_ , he had though, and handed over half his moon rock money. The best part (other than the fur on the hood- so _soft_ ) was a secret pocket on the inside, untouched by Hazel and Cha-Cha and thus still filled with The Good Stuff.

 

The man who asked looked pleased enough with the answer, and lay back down on the straw.

 

The man who had brandished the scythe earlier raised an eyebrow. “So, another Yank traitor,” he said sardonically. “Isn’t it against the law to be here?”

 

Klaus looked around. He still didn’t know exactly where- or when- he was, but he figured a disregard for authority was always en vogue. “That’s right,” he said. “Fuck President…”

 

“Wilson.” Dave muttered.

 

“Wilson. _Wilson!?_ ”

 

* * *

 

Dave excused him and Klaus once again (“I need to go catch up with Private…” “Hargreeves.” “See, this is how long we’ve been apart!”) and they found themselves leaning against the barn yet again.

 

“It’s 1917.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

“Normally I don’t condone such language, but I feel that’s an appropriate reaction to the situation,” Dave laughed. “Also the North Staffs have the worst potty mouths I’ve ever heard, and my uncle was a sailor.”

 

“And I take it we’re in the middle of the war?”

 

“Right on the money. We’re somewhere in Belgium. On rest.”

 

“How long have you been here?”

 

“A month. They tell me I joined at the right time. Apparently they’ve been getting so many replacements sent up they didn’t even question me when I showed up.”

 

“Replacements meaning…”

 

“Everyone keeps dying, yeah.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I hope your guy can help us quick, Hargreeves. We’re going up to the front in ten days.”

 

* * *

 

 

_May 22, 1917_

_Morning_

 

Waking up in the barn wasn’t that unlike waking up in the Umbrella Academy. Klaus was surrounded by a bunch of people who had nearly gotten him killed, his head felt like it was going to explode (time travel hangover? He’d have to ask Five about that when he got back), and he was waking up in clothes that weren’t his. This time, to his delight, they belonged to Sexy American Dave, though he had lent Klaus an extra uniform, which was not nearly as delightful as having done a sexy-shirt-swap in the night.

 

Even his waking up routine was similar. Stretch. Yawn. Scratch crotch. Scratch again. Scratch again. Klaus pulled his belt off, puzzled. Why was his crotch so damn itchy? Then he saw the lice, and he screamed.

 

* * *

 

“What the bloody hell is the Yank doing?”

 

“No bloody idea, mate.”

 

“Go ask him.”

 

“You go ask the bugger! He’s holding a bloody razor!”

 

Klaus had tried to be discreet, but the rest of the North Staffordshires had followed him out behind the barn after he borrowed Wood’s razor and stomped out of the billet.

 

“Yeah, that’s alright. Come watch, you bunch of freaks,” Klaus called as he dropped his pants.

 

Wood, a jovial young man who seemed to be well-liked by everyone, approached first and watched for a moment, as Klaus held a fistful of pubes in one hand and the razor in the other.

 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

 

“Shaving my pubes,” Klaus said.

 

“What did he say?” Renwick called from behind the hay bales. Clearly, despite his giant ears, Renwick couldn’t hear for shit.

 

“’E says he’s shaving his pubes,” Wood called back.

 

“Why?” called Renwick.

 

“Why?” asked Wood.

 

“Jesus Christ,” said Klaus, “tell him to come over here or wait until I’m done.”

 

Wood retreated to where Renwick stood. They approached in a gaggle with the men who had been watching with Renwick.

 

Klaus sighed, and crossed himself. “No pubes,” he said, holding up a bushel of curly lice-ridden hair and tossing it into the wind, “no lice.”

 

“That’s fucked up, man,” Baby-Face Hughes said. “What kind of man has no pubic hair?”

 

Klaus shrugged, finishing up with a final swipe. “Well, enjoy little lice with their little mouths crawling all over your little penis.”

 

Renwick chucked. “Imagine getting gnoshed off by a bunch of lice!”

 

One of the burlier lieutenants, Meakin, grabbed him in a headlock and gave him a noogie. The lice he crushed in Renwick’s hair fell onto the grass. “That’s about as much action as you’ll ever get, ya lousy sod!”

 

Wood looked disturbed for a moment, then held his hand out for his razor. “Me next.”

 

* * *

 

_May 23, 1917_

_Morning._

 

Rest duty was not very restful.

 

Captain Reid, leader of the 1st Battalion’s C Company, showed up at the billet in the morning with a tin of coffee and showed no surprise to find a stranger amidst his men.

 

“Just you?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” said Klaus.

 

“Shit.”

 

Reid turned and walked out.

 

“Do we have another rest day?” Renwick looked around, hoping someone knew more than he did.

 

“Work detail!” Reid called from outside. The men groaned and Klaus looked to Dave for clarification.

 

“We lift things, mostly,” Dave said.

 

Klaus waggled his gangly arms in a manner he assumed resembled an octopus. “I can only lift your spirits with these spaghettis.” He appreciated that Dave was the only one who smiled. Especially when Patterson walked over and punched him in the face.

 

“Ow!” Klaus yelled, clutching his cheek.

 

“You’re part of the team now, naked man. You do what we do,” Wood said, elbowing Klaus in the side and leaving the barn.

 

Outside, there were three horse-drawn carts filled with metal jugs labelled ‘water’. The horses were nowhere to be seen. The men had already begun unloading the cargo and hauling the jugs through the mud to where a shoddily constructed railroad was built. In the distance, the most pathetically small train Klaus had ever seen rolled quietly towards them.

 

“Why don’t we wait for the train to come before unloading all this shit?” he asked Dave.

 

“They’re going to need the carts,” he replied grimly. And sure enough, when the train pulled in to the end of the wooden tracks, its flat-bedded cars were packed with muddy, groaning soldiers. Most were missing limbs or unconscious (or worse), and a group of men wearing armbands marked ‘SB’ pushed past them, unfolding stretchers and dragging dead and dying men onto them.

 

“Hargreeves!” Wood shouted, pulling Klaus’s attention away from the grisly scene. “Don’t be a goldbrick, help me unload these last couple.”

 

With all the strength he could muster, he and Wood hoisted a metal container between them and carried it towards the others. Klaus slipped on a muddy board, stumbling forwards. Patterson caught him around the waist and hissed,

 

“Don’t you bloody dare drop that.”

 

Klaus stuck his tongue out at Patterson as he passed them, returning to the cart to retrieve the last of the containers with Dave.

 

“What’s really in here, liquid gold?” Klaus asked Wood when they finally (gently) lowered their cargo to the ground.

 

“Pretty much,” Wood said, wiping his dirty hands on his dirtier trousers. “Water. You’d feel the same if you were at Delville, man.”

 

“What happened there?”

 

“We were surrounded in the woods. Well, it wasn’t much of a wood when we got there. There wasn’t a tree left standing, just trenches filled with the dead. It took forever to find our positions- all the landmarks had been blown away. We weren’t there for three days when the advance came. We held our positions, but Jerry got the company on the right. We were sharing a trench with them, separated by a pile of sandbags and a code of honour.”

 

“How… respectable.”

 

“The buggers didn’t need to do nothing. They were in between us and HQ. We were cut off from supplies. We ran out of fresh water a few days in, so we started drinking the rainwater that we were standing in. Us, the rats, the bloated decaying corpses, all stewing together in one big pot that was keeping us alive but killing us slowly.”

 

Patterson limped back from the carts and stopped behind Wood, silent.

 

“Then there was another attack. We were all sick, but it made us desperate. It was… close combat. Hand to hand. The worst three hours of my life, until they retreated further down the line. We were still stuck, no food, no water.”

 

“Thought we agreed not to talk about that,” Patterson said, finally, making Wood jump about a foot in the air.

 

“Jesus, Patterson!” Wood exclaimed. “Don’t sneak up on a man like that.”

 

“Just like a wizard,” he said. Klaus expected him to smile or turn it into a joke. But no, Patterson kept a completely straight face, said, “Abracadabra,” and limped away.

 

“Is he-“ Klaus began, but Wood shook his head.

 

“’He’s got a thing for magicians. If ‘e wasn’t in such a bloody terrible mood all the time I’d tease ‘im about it. Then again, I didn’t get my legs blown up, so cut him some slack.”

 

“How’d you guys get out?”

 

“Plane flew overhead, finally. We shot up a flare and the barrage started that afternoon. I tell you, mate, I’ve never been gladder to hear the big guns in me life. They sent up reinforcements. By that time, the Jerries had all but disappeared and we was all shittin’ ourselves to death with dysentery. Spent months in the hospital, I did. Most of us just got back to France a few months ago. Patterson’s only been back for a few weeks. Poor bugger got sent up again after they fixed his legs.”

 

“And you just… came back?”

 

Wood laughed. “No bleedin’ choice, mate. But trust me, being shot at by Jerry is better than dysentery.”

 

* * *

 

 

_May 25, 1917_

_Evening._

 

 “My wife’s Irish.”

 

“You’re married, Chads?”

 

“I am indeed, Katz. Catherine and me have been married three years now, so I’ll thank all of you to leave me out of your deviant conversations.”

 

Meakin smirked before sing-songing “many a married man wants to go back to France again,” while Chads rolled his eyes, an illustration of the maturity all his twenty six years had given him.

 

“Come on, lads,” Chads protested. “Let a man be loyal to his wife.”

 

“She keeps you satisfied?” Hughes said, gyrating his pelvis in Chads’s face.

 

“She’s a Catholic gal, surely?” Renwick said, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Catholic gals are prudes, aren’t they?” Meakin said.

 

“Come on, guys. Leave Chads alone,” Dave said. “He’s probably gotten laid more times than all of you put together.”

 

Klaus laughed. He doubted it was true, considering the amount of sex he had throughout his twenties. Not good sex, but sex nonetheless. So he was in no position to judge, but he still felt a strange stab of jealousy when the rest of the group turned their attention to Dave’s sexual history.

 

“Tell us about American girls, Katz.”

 

“Oh, they’re not so different,” he said.

 

“He’s blushing!” Renwick exclaimed. “Is it from thinking ‘bout all the dirty things they’ve done to you?”

 

Dave shoved Renwick, who lost his balance and fell sideways off the empty cart they were sitting in into a fresh pile of horse shit.

 

The men all shouted with laughter. Dave tried to look apologetic, but even he wasn’t immune to the hilarity of it. Renwick himself began laughing, shouting over the peals of laughter that they would be the ones who would have to smell him all night, and Chads went into dad-mode, dragging Renwick away by an overlarge ear to the cleanest looking puddle and ordering him to strip down. The men all followed, harassing Renwick for smelling like shit and Chads for acting like their dad.

 

“How fitting, considering I _am_ going to be a dad,” he retorted. Renwick reached for him with his soiled arm.

 

“Cradle me, daddy,” he crooned, and Chads pushed him down in the puddle.

 

“And yes, I _am_ the father, you degenerates,” he added, before any of the men could contest the parentage of his baby.

 

“Congratulations, Chads,” Meakin said, clapping him on the back. “You’ve had sex once.”

 

Things quieted down once the chill of the night set in. Dave and Klaus remained seated in the cart while the artillery barrage harangued the silence of the night with explosions of fire.

 

“Are you scared?” Dave asked, staring at the skyline lit with flame.

 

Klaus nodded. Truth be told, he hadn’t given returning to the present (future?) much thought for the past five days. All thoughts of finding the briefcase seemed to have fled his mind. Time had passed in a flurry of activity and hard physical labour, and moments like this evening had made him wonder if this was what a family was supposed to be like. The prospect of going to the front seemed like a distant thought- surely, something would happen and he would be saved, or brought back to the present (future?) by Five or God would pluck him from this time, give him a slap on the wrist and a biting insult and deposit him back in his time with a ring of her bicycle bell. Klaus didn’t think about dying, because death never gave him the chance.

 

Dave squared his jaw against the setting sun like he was preparing to fight time itself to prevent it from passing. Klaus took a chance, moving closer to Dave until he was sitting by his side. _I’m a touchy guy,_ Dave had said one night in the quiet darkness of the barn, so Klaus put a hand on his shoulder and dug his fingers into the muscle of his back, massaging lightly. He seduced a guy by doing that, once.

 

“I guess it’s inevitable.”

 

Klaus blinked. Had he said something out loud? Because he definitely was attracted to Dave, and him attempting to seduce the other man seemed like something he’d inevitably do if he wasn’t careful.

 

Klaus decided to play it safe. “What is?”

 

“Death.”

 

“Not really,” he said. Dave looked startled by his answer.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well,” Klaus figured he’d tell the truth. They’d probably be dead in five days anyways. Or at least, everyone else would. He might just suffer. Horribly. Then come back. “I should have died like, at least ten times already, but somehow I’m still here.” He punctuated this with a wave of his ‘goodbye’ hand.

 

“I do a lot of drugs,” he said, by way of explanation.

 

“I’ve noticed,” Dave said wryly.

 

“Sometimes I take too many and I die.”

 

“But…”

 

He figured he’d leave out the bit about God and her stupid bicycle. “Paramedics in the future are very good at their jobs. I wouldn’t worry about dying for a second if Kurtis and Miranda were here.”

 

“Let’s hope a briefcase falls out of the sky on them, too.”

 

Klaus was hit with a sudden wave of guilt. It was his fault that Dave was in this situation. For all he knew, he had (accidentally) yanked Dave out of an afternoon of gardening in the yard of a little white house surrounded by a white picket fence with five little Katzes running around while Mrs. Katz baked pies in a yellow apron. The thought hadn’t occurred to him before now, but it would explain why Dave never joined in when the rest of them engaged in manly talk about girls.   

 

“What if we can’t go back?”

 

Dave stared at the horizon for so long that Klaus jumped when Dave finally answered him. “It wouldn’t be so bad to start over, I suppose. I’m not too keen on dying, though.”

 

“Well, I’ve escaped so far. Stick with me, David, and I’ll keep you among the living.”

 

* * *

 

_May 27, 1917_

_Late._

 

Work detail continued, and it kept Klaus exhausted enough that he was unable to cook up any sort of scheme, even a half-cocked one that involved pudding, anuses, and lies.

 

Somehow, Dave was still by his side. He had woken him up a number of nights before now; he could feel the straw shift underneath them both as Klaus began to thrash in his sleep, pushing away invisible ghosts that Dave didn’t know existed. He would reach across the distance between them and whisper “you alright, Klaus?” (always Klaus, never Hargreeves, never Number Four, never Ghost Boy, never Junkie) and Klaus would wake up, panicked, like he always would, and whisper “Ben?” into the darkness. And Dave would put a strong hand on his shoulder and answer, “no, it’s Dave, remember?” and drag him outside around the back of the barn, light them both cigarettes, and ask him if he wanted to talk about it.

 

Tonight, Dave didn’t ask.

 

“You haven’t been here long enough to have nightmares like that, Klaus.”

 

Klaus tugged his jacket tighter across his shoulders. The promise of spring had stagnated, cowed by strong winds and constant drizzles of cold rain that turned the mottled mud into a dangerous swamp. It wasn’t raining now, nor could the wind reach them in their sanctuary between barn and hay bales. Still, he felt a chill.

 

Klaus’s chipped nails clinked against glass vials when he reached into his inner pocket (the Canadians, he learned earlier, called it a ‘Mickey pocket’. He made a reference to Mickey Mouse and was met with utter disgust, aside from one private offering to catch him a big fat rat to fill his pocket if he _really_ liked rodents that much. 1917 was the fucking worst. But no, the inner pocket was apparently ubiquitous in Canada and used as a vehicle for smuggling liquor into hockey games). He had no personal stash of whiskey, but he did have the remains of his last Ketamine bake. Robbing a veterinarian’s office was always a bit shameful, but the joy of dissociatives trumped the guilt over stealing doggie painkillers.

 

Klaus shook out half the contents of one of the vials onto the back of his hand and snorted as much of it as he could. He licked the white dust off the back of his hand.

 

“What was that?” Dave asked. The light from his cigarette was striking in the darkness but left his features cloaked in shadow.

 

“That’s how they did it in the 90’s, baby,” Klaus said, tipping his head back and shaking it, willing the Special K to get special faster.

 

“You shouldn’t put that shit in your body.”

 

“That sounds like something my brother would say.” Klaus smiled, thinking of Diego. He didn’t miss him; not yet; but the prospect of never seeing him again made his chest ache.

 

“Ben?”

 

Klaus frowned. “How do you know about Ben?”

 

“You call me Ben when I wake you up from- when I wake you up.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Do you miss him?”

 

Klaus thought for a moment. Ben had become so interwoven in the fabric of his life, even moreso after his death. It was nice, having someone to talk to, even in the depths of shame, or loneliness, or despair. Sure, he berated him more often than not, but Ben was the best friend he ever had. Klaus had thought they looked after each other, but he was starting to feel that maybe Ben had done more for Klaus than he had realized. There was no way to make it up to him now.

 

“I do. He looked out for me. I thought I took care of him too, only now I’m not so sure. We were together for most of our childhood, then we were apart. Then things changed. And now I’m here.”

 

“Let’s get some sleep. You feeling better?”

 

The drugs must have started working, because the world was colourful and filled with shapes and Klaus felt peace. “Yeah,” he sighed. He flicked the remains of his cigarette away and twirled a couple times before stumbling through the darkness back to his and Dave’s pile of itchy soggy straw.

 

May 28. 1917

Afternoon.

 

There was no more heavy lifting to be done, and Reid had generously given his unit the remainder of the day off, citing that he was sick of watching them slack off and would punish them with a full day of drills tomorrow. Klaus couldn’t see his logic, but took the reprieve without question. He and Dave were laying on their backs atop a bale, identifying shapes in the clouds. It was an activity that Dave had thought a part of everyone’s childhood and was shocked that Klaus had never had the luxury.

 

“Look, that one’s an apple!” Dave said, waving his arm over Klaus’s head to point to a particularly fluffy cloud.

 

“Nope, that’s an ass. A nice round butt just crying ‘spank me, daddy’.”

 

“I don’t want to know how your filthy mind works.”

 

Klaus leaned over and nuzzled his head into Dave’s shoulder. “It’s a wonderland.”

 

Dave laughed, pushing him off. He gazed back up at the sky, pointing to another. “Cannon.”

 

Klaus laughed in disbelief. There was no way this guy was real. “What are you seeing? Because I’m seeing a big, thick, throbbing co-“

 

Dave slapped a hand over his mouth but his face was turning red from trying not to laugh. “I can’t believe you.”

 

The cloud drifted in front of a long, white stratocumulus cloud. Dave’s jaw dropped in disbelief at the phallus in the sky. “Maybe you have a point,” he said, as Klaus laughed.

 

They heard a roar of laughter from below them, where Wood and Patterson were also pointing to the sky.

 

 “Oi, it looks like that cloud wanked itself off!” Wood yelled. The rest of the men ran outside, led by Renwick at a full sprint. They all looked up to the sky and a cacophony of dirty jokes followed. 

 

As the cloud drifted away, Wood caught sight of Klaus and Dave and climbed up the bale to sit with them.

 

“Hey, Yanks,” he said. “I got an idea. We’re going up to the line in a couple days, and I thought we should do something special. Me ‘n Patterson saw a farm a few miles up that way and a good meal would really bolster morale. Y’know what I’m saying?”

 

Klaus and Dave exchanged a look.

 

“No.” Dave said.

 

“There were chickens, man. _Chickens_.”

 

Klaus raised an eyebrow. “You want us to steal a chicken?”

 

“Obviously.”

 

“Why didn’t you and Patterson take it when you saw it?” Dave asked.

 

“Stealing’s illegal, mate.”

 

“So you want us to commit the crime for you?”

 

“Well, you’re Americans,” Wood said, as if this solved the problem.

 

“It’s also illegal in the States.”

 

“Well yeah, but like, Wild West and all that.”

 

Klaus shrugged. Wood had a point.

 

* * *

 

 

The farm was in sight when Klaus finally thought to ask Dave if he had ever stolen anything before.

 

“Why do you ask?” was his reply. He kept looking at the road ahead of him, even though they had cleared the shell-holes and pockmarks in the ground a kilometre back.

 

“Because most guys don’t just agree to walk three miles and steal a chicken.”

 

“Lord, it sounds absurd when you say it out loud,” Dave laughed.

 

Klaus stopped abruptly, and held a hand up to his ear. “Did you hear that?”

 

Dave stopped and dropped to a squat, looking overhead for surveillance planes. “What?”

 

“Dave just took the Lord’s name in vain!”

 

Dave stood up, sighing. “I thought you were serious, Hargreeves.”

 

“No, really. Is Big G going to come down on her little bicycle and smack you with a hula hoop? Is Jesus going to roll up and compliment you on your choice of Mary Magdalene,” he pointed to himself and pouted, modelesque, “before smacking you with a crown of thorns?”

 

“I’m Jewish, you jerk. Or, I was, at least. I never had a problem with religion, but it seemed to have a problem with me.”

 

It was a strange thing to say. Klaus let it settle in his brain for a minute, before turning over its meaning. It was almost as if…

 

“Are-“

 

“I stole a ring, once,” Dave cut him off. “A wedding ring.”

 

“Ooh la la,” Klaus sing-songed, forgetting momentarily about the implications of Dave’s religious exile.

 

“Not like that,” he snapped, and Klaus was taken aback by the rancour behind Dave’s words. “It was my mama’s. Pa pawned it for drinking money back in ’55 and she was real cut up over it, as she should be. It was a nasty thing to do, but he was a nasty man. I still went back for his funeral, though. I thought when he died, things could go back to normal, so I took my savings and spent it on a bus ticket back home, but I ended up hitch-hiking back to New York in the middle of winter.”

 

“My dad used to lock me in a crypt overnight when I was a kid,” Klaus said. He didn’t know why he said that. Maybe he needed Dave to know that he wasn’t alone. Shitty father solidarity went a long way.

 

“Is that what you dream about?”

 

Klaus nodded and smiled grimly. “Ben had it worse than me. Sometimes I dream about him. Not being able to save him.”

 

Dave had finally met his eyes, and he was surprised to find his face blurred through a screen of tears. Klaus tried to blink them away, but one renegade tear made its way down his cheek. Dave’s face softened immeasurably and he enveloped Klaus in a hug. Klaus hugged back, burying his face in Dave’s shoulder. He hadn’t been hugged like this… ever. It made his chest ache.

 

A sharp _bawk bawk bawk_ cut through the whistling of the wind and they pulled apart.

 

“Chicken!” Klaus yelled, darting after it as it half waddled, half flew across the overgrown field.

 

Dave hesitated a moment, then took off after him. They chased the scrawny chicken across the field until it was backed against the farmhouse. Dave nodded at Klaus, then crept to the left, motioning for Klaus to take the right flank. They slowly shuffled closer to the chicken. It was pecking innocently at the ground. Dave held up three fingers, counting down to The Chicken Ambush. Klaus gulped. Two fingers. He felt guilty already. One finger. Klaus closed his eyes, and jumped towards the chicken.

 

* * *

 

 

“I can’t believe you killed a chicken.”

 

“I grew up on a farm.”

 

“So you’re an experienced murderer, is that it?”

 

“Klaus, it’s a chicken.”

 

“No, David. It’s an innocent. A casualty of war! Protected under the Geneva Convention!”

 

“The Geneva Convention hasn’t been signed yet. We’re still under the Hague Conventions. Didn’t you learn anything in school?”

 

“I learned how to fight, mostly.”

 

The bickering continued all the way back to the billet. Dave held the chicken by the feet with the hand furthest away from Klaus, by his request. Dave, then, got all the glory when they arrived back at the barn, chicken swinging between them. Patterson had let out a sound that he would later deny was a squeal, and set to work cleaning his knife. Klaus blanched and left the barn, preferring to sit outside and watch the wind catch the feathers being dumped at the entrance and blow them away.

 

When the massacre of the poor chicken (Pecker, Klaus had named her) was over, the men filed out and surveyed the feather-covered landscape before them.

 

“Shit,” Hughes said.

 

“Fuck,” Renwick said, as Captain Reid stalked over to them, gesturing to the feathers and fixing them all with a look that said _how in God’s name have you managed to tar and feather the only rest place in Belgium that hasn’t been shelled yet._

 

“Explain,” he said.

 

They surreptitiously glanced around, wondering who would speak up and inevitably take the blame. Klaus, used to losing this game, tried to prepare an alibi for the rest of the men, but his mind instead fell down the rabbit hole of familiarity.

 

There was a time when he and his siblings used to play. A time when they would chase each other around the mansion for fun, not because Reginald had ordered them to. A time when they had behaved like seven children were supposed to behave.

 

And more often than not, one of them (usually Ben) would knock over a bizarrely shaped vase or tear the curtains (that was usually Diego) or be confronted after something went missing after a Special Undercover Night Quest ™ to steal small treasures from Reginald’s study (it was Klaus and Vanya’s one shared activity; neither one of them had spoken to the other about it since Vanya left, but Klaus still kept the tiny ceramic frog tucked into his backup underpants (they were plain grey and therefore unsuitable for any day except laundry day). He told himself whenever he was forced to wear the backup underpants (which was often; he really had to start doing his laundry more) it was because it was a good hiding place for his stash, but the frog was only hollowed out enough to hold a cotton ball and two medium-sized pills.). Sometimes Mom would cover for them. She started out repairing slashed curtains, or gluing together broken vases, but as time went on, she surprised them all by lying to Reginald’s face.

 

“No,” she had said, a beacon of light cutting through a gloomy afternoon. “Klaus was playing dress-up with me all morning and Vanya was practicing.”

 

Reginald had ignored Vanya completely as she shrank behind Mom’s skirt. “Your behaviour has become erratic, Number Four. Another night in the mausoleum should deter you should you consider engaging in such behaviours in the future.”

 

He turned to walk away. Despite Grace’s warning hand on his shoulder, Klaus pushed past her and reached for his father’s hand. Reginald wrenched it away as if he had been burned.

 

“You said being in there was… was training. Not punishment.”

 

“It would be training, Number Four, if you weren’t completely inept at controlling your power.” With that, he retreated back to his study, slamming the door behind him.

 

It became routine after that to take the fall for his brothers and sisters. Ending nights locked in the crypt became a regularity, and in the months before his discovery that getting high would make his life so much easier, Diego would intervene. Though Ben was the one who he spent his nights with, talking or reading or listening to music through shared headphones, Diego was the one who made his days liveable. Diego listened, and he always seemed to know when Klaus was having a particularly bad night. Then, the next time they were called into the study, Diego would step up and take the fall and subsequent punishment. They never talked about it.

 

And now, they probably never will, Klaus thought wryly.

 

“Feather pillow, sir,” Harker said, suddenly, snapping Klaus out of his trance.

 

“What was that?” Reid asked.

 

“Feather pillow. Sir.”

 

“Explain, please.”

 

Harker exchanged a glance with Patterson, whose giddy glee had been replaced with the cautious hope. “Renwick received a feather pillow from home, sir. We ribbed him about it so much he got in a steam and ripped it apart in a fit of madness.”

 

“He ripped apart a pillow.” Reid said with disbelief.

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Wood, is this true?”

 

“You heard what Harker said, sir. Harker don’t tell lies.”

 

Harker nodded solemnly. Klaus could see a fork sticking out of his pocket.

 

“If you bastards found a chicken, you better damn well share it or I’m court martialling all of you.”

 

* * *

 

 

_May 29, 1917_

_Afternoon_

 

Drills were such a nightmare that Klaus wished he could go back to lifting things for ten hours straight.

 

It didn’t help that Klaus had never even held a gun before, aside from a water pistol. He only had one chance to squirt Luther in the face before he was picked up and tossed across the room. After that, he kept it filled with vodka in case of emergencies.

 

A dollar store water gun was nothing like a Lee Enfield rifle.

 

“Fix bayonets!” Reid called. The men attached their bayonets, and Klaus tried to follow their example. Dave also appeared to struggle with the bayonet. At least now he could blame it on being an American thing.

 

But then they started target practice, and Dave hit every target, blowing everyone away.

 

“Katz!” Reid called. Dave stood to attention.

 

“What the hell was that?”

 

“Shooting, sir.”

 

“You’re damn right it was. How is it that an ambulance boy can shoot straighter than the rest of my unit?”

 

“Is that a rhetorical question, sir?” Renwick asked. Reid hit him upside the head.

 

“It’s fatigue, sir!” Hughes shouted.

 

“We’ve had too long since we been on leave, sir!” Meakin added.

 

Harker cleared his throat. Everyone, including Reid, turned their attention to him. Klaus had learned that Harker spoke rarely, but when he did, he dispensed only the most valuable tidbits of wisdom. The North Staffordshires trembled in anticipation.

 

“Me arms hurt,” Harker said.

 

The unit was silent. Reid nodded solemnly and dismissed the men. He turned and began to stalk back to the officers’ tent, but stopped in his tracks and called back over his shoulder,

 

“Hargreeves!”

 

“Sir?” Klaus stood straight, hand saluting. Reid sighed.

 

“Get one of these bastards to teach you how to shoot before you get yourself killed.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hargreeves, get your scrawny arse over here.”

 

Meakin was waiting for him outside the billet with both of their rifles.

 

“Are you going to execute me!?” Klaus clutched at his chest dramatically. “Is it because I’m a German spy?”

 

“You’re going to bloody kill yourself if you don’t learn how to shoot a fucking gun,” Meakin said, thrusting a rifle into Klaus’s chest.

 

“Can’t I just be on lookout duty? I’m good at lookout duty.”

 

Meakin fixed him with a glare and they walked out to the smashed up field of stone behind the church that they were using earlier. They both lay down on their bellies and Meakin propped up his rifle.

 

“I’m not dying because some Yank can’t hold a bloody gun,” he said. “Like this. On your shoulder. Not like that, you bloody idiot.” He dropped his own gun and adjusted Klaus’s hold.

 

“And now you shoot.” Meakin fired his gun like it was no big deal. Klaus couldn’t see where the bullet went. He supposed it didn’t matter. He mimicked Meakin’s position and furrowed his brow. He could use some Benzedrine right now. Had Benzedrine been invented yet? Would Benzedrine make a difference considering none of the guns the battalion owned could shoot straight?

 

Klaus fired the gun. Meakin seemed satisfied.

 

“Again.” Klaus fired again. The sound of it was lost among the sounds of artillery fire from the front.

 

“Again.”

 

By the time the sun began to set, Klaus had successfully shattered the last stained glass window in the church and accidentally shot a pathetic looking bird perching on a cracked stone. When he went to retrieve it (“We should eat it,” Meakin said), Klaus noticed the writing on the stone. He glanced around, horrified that the yard they had been drilling in all day was a cemetery, and the headstones had all been shattered into gravel by purposefully aimed bullets. Meakin met his eyes and shook his head.

 

“Don’t get yerself in a flap, Hargreeves. It’s war.”

 

“But it’s-“

 

“It’s nothing. They’re dead. We’re alive, at least for now.”


	2. Interlude A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude A: The Time Commission assigns the least suited agents to the 1917 case, The Handler can't speak Vietnamese, and The Historian eats butter chicken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for the first interlude! It's all about the temporal assassins on the case, so I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea. The next chapter is back to Klaus and Dave in Belgium.
> 
> I'm pleased to say I have enough of this done that I can offer regular updates with a well-placed dramatic pause while I'm travelling. I'm thinking Wednesdays for the main chapters and interludes on the weekends (after this one we've got Dave, the TC again, Five, and finally: The Wedding) 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has read and commented and/or left kudos. The overwhelming joy of reading comments is unmatched.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

“Thank you for coming,” a voice said from behind the padded leather chair.

 

Hà Liên shrugged her shoulders. It wasn’t as if she had a choice. She did her job, and she did it well. Her partner, Arjay, adjusted his pagri, under which he concealed multiple firearms, a dagger, and a small decorative sword, which Hà Liên called “The Letter Opener.” He claimed it was ceremonial. She reminded him that he was an atheist from Detroit and he bought it at Medieval Times in California when they went to Disneyland on vacation. A work vacation, of course. They may have delayed eliminating their target in order to make a quick stop in 1986 for the grand opening of the California franchise of Medieval Times, but the job got done. With Hà Liên and Arjay, it always did.

 

“There’s been a case of unauthorized time travel,” the voice said. Arjay raised an eyebrow. This was obvious. They wouldn’t be called in if there wasn’t a breach. The Handler was clearly in one of her dramatic moods again.

 

Hà Liên smiled politely. “Yes ma’am,” she said. “We’ll handle it.”

 

The Handler spun around in her leather chair. Hà Liên’s mouth went dry. God, she was beautiful. _Fuck_ , she thought. _I am such a Big Gay._ Arjay approached The Handler’s desk to pick up the file.

 

“I trust you two to make yourselves fit in. You will also have Charles in the field if you need... assistance," she said condescendingly. 

 

“ _The_ Charles?” asked Arjay. “Hasn’t he been deep undercover for years?”

 

“He holds a very important position which has now been threatened by this event.”

 

Hà Liên’s smile tightened with the memory of meeting Charles. She had only met him a few times, and they had always struggled to understand each other. Her Vietnamese accent and his Scottish brogue didn’t mesh very well, along with the fact that he was a Grade A Asshole. He was one lucky, though. He was able to work in his original time period, which, if she was not mistaken…

 

“Are you sending us into the First World War?” she asked.

 

The Handler looked shocked by her interruption. Hà Liên never interrupted The Handler. “Why yes, Hà Liên, I am.” She pronounced Hà Liên’s name like “Alien”. Suddenly, Hà Liên felt her Big Gay Feelings towards The Handler begin to recede, like a rainbow tide being pulled back by the moon. She’d thought her admiration of the other woman imperturbable, but really, there was no turn-off like language-based microaggressions.

 

“Oh great,” Arjay sighed. “A Vietnamese girl and an Indian dude. We’ll fit right in in the trenches.”

 

The Handler smiled her politest smile and said with her eyes, “Get the hell out of my office.”

 

“I’m sure you’ll make it work,” she said in reality, and turned back around with a dramatic flair.

 

* * *

 

“Do you think we’ll get to work with Charles?” Arjay asked. He clapped his hands together and Hà Liên could swear she could see him skip a little bit. “I love his work. His translation of Proust was just-“ he kissed his fingertips and made an awkward ‘mwah’ sound.

 

“It doesn’t matter until we figure out how the hell to get to this guy.”

 

Hà Liên liked to figure out a plan first, then let Arjay add the dramatic flair. They’d been partners for years, ever since Arjay was pulled off the streets of Detroit on the eve of the apocalypse. It didn’t take him long to adjust to the job; he said he’d always liked watching PBS (whatever _that_ was) and thus knew a lot about history. He didn’t, not really, because he apologized to Hà Liên the first time he met her for his country defeating her country in the war. She had threatened to beat him up (she had a good five inches on him in height and was combat trained) and informed him that he was terribly mistaken. She would know. She was there. He had laughed, apologized for the American school system, and politely asked how to pronounce her name. (Hà Liên, she had said, like the saint. He copied, slowly repeating ‘Hah Leyn’ over and over until he nodded curtly and removed a bouquet of flowers from under the turban he wore and presented them earnestly). Since then, they’d been inseparable, working with the ease of two puzzle pieces finding their match.

 

She was particularly good at infiltration and removal, and Arjay handled the technique. _The fluff,_ she called it, but she did appreciate his work. Dressing up as a cartoon mouse during the California mission was peak comedy. Oh, the look on his face while his own creations stole his final screenplay. They had acted out a scene, too, while the creator lay dying in bed. Horribly anti-Semitic stuff. She had enjoyed burning it.

 

Arjay pursed his lips. Then he squatted down on the ground in the middle of the office hallway and closed one eye. He beckoned.

 

“Come, Hà Liên. Squat with me.”

 

Hà Liên squatted next to him, checking the hallway for passersby. Squatting on the ground helped him think, apparently. Something about blood flow to his toes. This was the position he was in when he made a breakthrough on the Thatcher Job, though, so no one argued with it. The Thatcher Job was a thing of beauty.

 

“Well,” he said slowly. “I could join an Indian regiment. But we still couldn’t get to the guy.”

 

“Maybe he’ll be killed in battle?”

 

“It’s likely.”

 

“Do you think maybe we should wait it out?”

 

“We should make a stop first.”

* * *

 

The Historian was not on the payroll of the Time Commission, and for that she was incredibly bitter, considering the amount of work she did for them. Instead, she taught history in a pocket universe in the future, trying to turn apathetic teenagers into well-rounded enthusiasts like herself.

 

Hà Liên and Arjay stood outside the door of her office, Arjay carrying a takeout box of butter chicken and a bag of sour candy. The office was in a typical outdated, underfunded university building. The light in the hallway flickered ominously. The smell of hot butter chicken mixed with the musty smell of broken dreams. The nameplate on the door was indecipherable, not because she had obscured it in any way, but because her name was Eastern European. They didn’t know what her students called her, but to make it easy, she was simply The Historian. Arjay once argued that they should add to the Time Commission naming conventions and wanted to change his name to The Arjay. He tried to make it work for a few missions. It didn’t.

 

The Historian opened the door. She was dressed all in tweeds with a red beret, and accessorized with an angry look in her eye. “I’m grading papers,” she said.

 

They waited for a follow up explanation, perhaps a “make it quick,” or “come back later.” When she opened her office door, they understood why.

 

The Historian had a way of getting what she wanted, and she had found out that the Time Commission had An Architect. For her services, she said, she wanted a Magic Office. Most of the time, it looked like a normal office. Bookcases would be jammed against every wall, overflowing with books and sheafs of paper. The window would be facing east, so every morning (she was a morning person, _of course_ , because all eccentric scholars are) the glare from the sun would render her computer utterly useless and she would turn it around and sit facing her own desk. Her students would come in, unaware that every morning she would swear at the sun when it peeked over the engineering building (the only thing the engineering building was ever good for, she yelled, as she shook her fist at it, like it was a cloud and she an old man). She would invite them to sit beside her and offer them coffee. “The good stuff,” she would say with a straight face. Expecting it to be laced with alcohol, the students would be both disappointed yet amazed that their professor took coffee this seriously, and, bonded over caffeinated beverage and the oppression of the sun, begin to talk about historical essay assignments.

 

When she was stressed however, the office would resemble what Hà Liên imagined the Pope’s Secret Library to look like. There was a ramp running down at a light angle to a dais in the middle of the room. A moat was set up around the dais, in which tiny sting rays swam around lazily. Hà Liên expected the stone bridge would retract if The Historian desired to isolate herself on an island. The dais itself held a plush green sofa with a rolling desk in front of it. Each side was flanked with a giant plush tiger. Bookshelves still lined the walls, which had become circular. They were gilded with gold leaf, as was the sliding ladder that was perched near the entrance. The ceiling was modelled on Brunelleschi’s dome on the Cathedral of Florence with the point terminating in a long chain balancing a chandelier made of gold and bone.

 

“Catholic melodrama,” Arjay said with awe.

 

“Your Architect thought of almost everything,” The Historian said. “Thank God you know exactly what I need when I have to mark fucking classics essays.” She grabbed the takeout bag from Arjay and extracted the bowl of butter chicken. “I’m fucking sick of Mark Anthony.”

 

“Why are you teaching classics?” Hà Liên asked. She, like _every single other person_ who encountered The Historian knew of her utter disgust with Roman history.

 

“Budget cuts,” was her answer, said through a mouthful of rice.

 

Arjay and Hà Liên made sympathetic noises. They understood.

 

The Historian unloaded another forkful of butter chicken in her mouth. She maintained direct eye contact while she chewed. Hà Liên felt uncomfortable. 

 

“Our next mission takes place during the First World War,” she began, trying to break the tension.

 

The Historian swallowed, held up a finger to signal _just a moment_ and held a glass of water up to a machine labelled “Magic Soda Stream”. The water became bubbly and she tossed a wedge of lemon into it that she extracted from a questionably beer can-shaped mini fridge under the table.

 

“Sorry. Spicy.” She looked at Hà Liên and then to Arjay. “How are you two going to go undercover?”

 

“We came here because we were wondering that same thing,” Arjay said. He extracted the files from under his pagri _._ Hà Liên was always amazed at the amount of things he could fit under that thing. It must be some kind of subspace, she thought. It would also explain why keeping a dagger on his head was never an issue.

 

The Historian whistled. “Misdirected from the Vietnam War, hey? Tough luck for this kid.” She read further into the file, and began shaking her head.

 

“What is it?” Arjay asked. “Is it possible?”

 

“Oh, it’s possible. But you’re going to get dirty.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I can be found making posts on thevastydeep.home.blog and on the tumblr reblogging pictures of chickens if you're interested 
> 
>  
> 
> Next: It's time to head to the front line and Dave freaks out, Klaus becomes a suffragette, and The Boys take it back now, y’all.


	3. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part II: On the front line, Dave freaks out, Klaus becomes a suffragette, and the boys take it back now, y’all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Your comments have been so kind and wonderful! I promise I will always respond to every single one of them because I appreciate you all SO MUCH. Seriously, every time I get a comment notification I feel my face light up, so thank you! 
> 
> This week, put on your favourite trench songs (or The Cha Cha Slide) and buckle in: we're going to the front lines. 
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter Warnings: Graphic descriptions of drug use/needles, poor IV drug use hygiene, trench rats, corpses, emotionally stunted boys mutually pining and ignoring the obvious sexual tension between them

_May 31, 1917_

The explosions that had seemed so close proved much further away than Klaus had expected. Of course, the compact explosive sounds coming from _their_ artillery were close; the guns were hidden a few blocks from the barn under cover of an old trellis held together by knots of rope, tugged tight and fixed to the ground with pikes. The shifting of the earth caused the pikes to slowly dislodge over the hours, and someone had been taken from their battalion for the express purpose of re-hammering wooden pikes into the ground every hour in order to prevent the low-flying reconnaissance airplanes from spotting the site of their Big Guns. It was a shitty job, but Klaus didn’t envy it now. They’d been walking for hours straight into the sun.

 

Into the sun, into the fire.

 

It was terrifying.

 

They were preparing for a major assault, Reid had said. His mess tin was filled with whisky when he briefed them. Klaus had zoned out, focussing on the back of Dave’s neck in front of him. It was a nice neck. Solid. Tanned. Attached to a nicely-shaped head with a face that made angels sing. The urge to wrap his arms around Dave’s waist from behind and lay his cheek across his back was all-consuming. He had no false illusions that Dave would smell nice- no, they all smelled like hot garbage and groundwater, but Klaus was certain that if he ever wound up with Dave in his arms, he would never go home.

 

Possibly because Dave might punch him in the face and never give him one of his Manly Friendly Hugs ever again. Klaus couldn’t take that risk. He would die for Dave’s hugs.

 

“And then we climb up, run like the devil and kill all the Jerries that aren’t already dead.” Reid finished his speech like he finished all his speeches: lacking in delivery and creating a sense of unease among his men. He had a habit of stating the military-issued morale-bolstering ending lines with the same matter-of-factness that he used to inform the mess officer when they were out of pepper, or when Klaus’s bootlace was untied. There was no fight to his words, just an expectation that the job would get done, and it would be a simple task.

 

Reid never noticed that it had the opposite effect on his men and made them acutely aware of their own mortality and the fact that every minute of battle could very well be their last moment of life.

 

And with that, Reid led them into the rising sun, and Klaus looked back at the barn for the final time.  

 

* * *

  

“Left at the rock that looks like an arse, right at the Frog Legs.”

 

“The frog legs?”

 

“They stick out a bit.”

 

They learned what the Australians were talking about when they took a left at the rock that did indeed look like an arse and were faced with a junction marked by a decaying pair of legs sticking out of the dirt wall. They were wearing what remained of French army breeches, but where the fabric had been torn away they could see the black skin peeling off white bone. A crow sat on the right foot, cocking its head at them and, deciding they were no immediate threat, ducked its beak and tore off a long strip of decaying flesh before taking flight and disappearing out of view.

 

“Bad luck, mate,” Wood said.

 

“Bad luck for me, more like. I was hoping I could get a new pair of boots,” Hughes said. He pat the nearest foot with his bare hand and carried on down the trench.

 

Dave had been quiet through most of the journey, not even admonishing Klaus when he fell out of line and disappeared into the field hospital, emerging a couple minutes later with his pockets stuffed with vials of morphine and a syringe. He stared at the feet, expressionless, and made to go left.

 

Klaus grabbed his arm. “Right, remember?”

 

Dave nodded, and followed, jaw set and eyes a million miles away.

 

* * *

 

The trenches were lived-in in the sense that there were belongings scattered about the lines, treasures hidden in a long, jagged crack in the earth, but not lived-in in the sense that Klaus could picture anyone actually _living_ there. The ground was covered in duckboards buried from view by dark squelching mud that sucked his feet in and refused to let go, while cracks in the cement reinforcing the trench walls oozed the same mixture of earth, rot, and damp. Thankfully, there were no more French legs.

 

There were deep networks of tunnels underground that they were lead through in a perfunctory tour. They would sleep in sap holes: little pouches in the earth that protruded from the main tunnel, some blessed with the presence of two or three cots stuffed in so tightly a man could barely squeeze in between them. They were stained and beat-up, but undoubtedly more comfortable than a mattress made of sandbags. Down through the main tunnel was the officers’ quarters, their Aussie guide said, out of bounds to privates and NCOs. Stand-to will be at dawn, stand-down at dusk and, in true front-line fashion, meals at the fluctuating hour of ‘whenever’. They were led back to the surface where Meakin and Patterson were assigned to first watch, relieving a pair of smarmy Australians who told them to enjoy the fireworks as they left for their rotation on rest.

 

“Those without posts can settle in. Cook’s brewing up a pot of tea,” Reid ordered before disappearing back underground.

 

* * *

 

“Vimy wasn’t like this. We were far away, on the Howitzers.” Dave kept talking at the support beams in the sap. Klaus was grateful. He knew what he was doing was obvious to Dave, but it somehow helped with the discomfort of being watched. He pumped his fist a couple of times to make the vein on his forearm pop out, into which he slid the needle, a big, ugly thing that was sure to give him some sort of infection before the week was out. He pulled back on the plunger until he saw blood (bless Kurtis and Miranda for going against policy and supporting harm reduction techniques- they taught him how to make sure he was in the vein so he didn’t inject into the tissue), then depressed it slowly. Dave was had stopped talking and was looking at him curiously.

 

“Does it hurt?” he said.

 

“It hurts more not to,” Klaus said simply. Dave nodded. It was clear the conversation was over, but Klaus had never been a fan of silence. He waited until he felt the morphine course through his veins and stashed the syringe under the blanket on the cot. A fog of calm washed over him and made him feel loose and comfortable. “Where’d you learn to shoot?” he asked

 

“In the army, soldier. Same as you.”

 

“Oh, someone’s getting cheeky!” Klaus stood up and, craving warmth, fell onto Dave’s cot, knocking him over in a pile of spindly limbs. Below the cot, a New York subway sized rat shrieked and scampered away into the dark tunnels that protected them.

 

“Oh, that’s really gross,” Klaus mumbled before turning his attention back to Dave, pinned under his weight against the sagging cloth of the cot. “You have to tell me, Davey. I’ve told you all about my crazy life.”

 

Klaus could feel the pulse leaping where he had pinned Dave’s wrists. He could see it beat in his throat. The urge to lean down and kiss his pulse point was driving him mad. This was a mistake. It would be so easy, here, to grind down against him in the candlelit privacy of their private little hole in the ground. But there would be no pleasure of skin on skin, something Klaus never truly desired with anyone until now. He waited, straddling Dave’s waist, to be pushed off.

 

Instead, Dave raised an eyebrow and said, “And what if I don’t?”

 

Klaus had to bite his lip and think about Pogo in a bikini to keep himself from popping a boner right then and there.

 

“I’ll…” he searched for something, but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t come across as innuendo. “I’ll fight you?”

 

Dave laughed, and relief washed over Klaus. He was laughing genuinely, which meant he wasn’t totally freaked out. Klaus sat up, releasing Dave’s wrists from his wiry hold.

 

“Save the fight for the Germans. But if we survive this, I’ll gladly wrestle with you any time.” Dave flushed red at his own words. As if the blush were contagious, Klaus felt it colour his own face. He got up and retreated to his own bunk, thinking of how to turn this into a joke. He was thankful when Dave began to speak.

 

“You know, I was prepared to die, in my time. I had made my peace. My pa was dead, my family made it clear there was no chance of reconciling with them. My life in New York was a life lived in fear. I lived in fear of the things I’d done, and the things I wanted to do. When the war wanted me, I went. I trained. I shot. I killed. I’ve seen death before, Klaus, but not like this. I stopped believing in Hell when I left Grafton, but I was stupid. I thought I found Hell over there, but here? I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life.”

 

Klaus could think of a hundred things to say (“You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met” or “I’m sorry for bringing you here” or “Where was ‘over there’?” being the frontrunners) but none seemed appropriate. Instead, he said, “Hell doesn’t have artillery shells,” and held out the syringe he had stashed under the pillow. It wasn’t clean, he knew, but it was the only comfort he knew how to offer. Dave looked at it curiously, and nodded once.

 

“I can’t do myself,” he said, laying back on the cot. The broken frame made the side closest to Klaus sag down, forcing Dave’s body to angle towards him. Klaus knelt on the dirt floor, moving the candle closer. It outlined Dave’s features in harsh shadow. The downwards curve of his lips looked austere in the candlelight, and Klaus had the vague sensation that he was about to be graded on his skills. He caressed Dave’s extended arm, feeling for a vein that he knew he couldn’t miss with the needle. On himself he had no problem digging around for a flash of blood, but he didn’t want to hurt Dave. Of course, the very suggestion of drug abuse was a way of hurting him, but the offensive was coming. They may well not live long enough for it to become a problem. Klaus got Dave to curl and uncurl his fist and moved the candle again, this time to illuminate the thin skin on the underside of Dave’s forearm. There were faint red lines running up to the crook of his elbow that Klaus was surprised to see. He would never have suspected to find track marks on sweet, innocent Dave, yet here they were. He thought about asking, but Dave’s eyes were closed. He looked relaxed. He looked like he trusted Klaus with what he was about to do.

 

He could never resist a pretty face.

 

It was easy to see when the morphine kicked in. Dave’s shoulders seemed to have a weight lifted off them, and his face relaxed into a soft smile. They were laying side-by-side on the cots, separated by less than a foot, but Dave’s gaze was far off, as if he had just discovered a new star in the night sky.

 

“Amazing,” Dave said.

 

Klaus grinned. “Isn’t it?”

 

“You’re amazing. You,” Dave emphasized. He reached out his hand, grasping at the empty air. “Can you hold my hand when you blow out the candle? I don’t want to be alone.”

 

His voice sounded so small and shy in the near-darkness that Klaus couldn’t do anything but comply. He reached out just enough to barely touch Dave’s hand and leaned over to blow out the candle. Under cover of darkness, Klaus slid their palms together. They fell asleep, fingers entwined and holding fast in the space between them.

 

 

_June 1, 1917_

 

“And stand down!” Reid commanded. “Good job, men. A few more days of this and then we take on the Boche.” He pointed at a pair of privates further down the line. You two on watch. The rest of you know your orders. Dismissed!”

 

His morning watch had been uneventful, and for that Klaus was thankful. The constant anxiety of peering through a periscope at the desolate expanse of churned earth had, however, made him incredibly hungry. He wandered down towards the dugout, joined by Wood and Hughes. The dirt that covered them drew lines across their faces, making them look older. Hughes looked at least sixteen years old now, rather than eight. Klaus told him as much.

 

“A bit more dirt and I’ll finally be allowed in the brothel, eh?” he replied.

 

Further ahead of them, a troupe of Canadians emerged from a passage dug into the earth. They carried their fold-out shovels like rifles as they stumbled into the putrid air of the trench system and raised their heads to the sky, savouring the scent of the air as if it reminded them of their grandmothers’ warm bread in the oven. Wood raised a hand as he approached, greeting them like old friends.

 

“Glad to see you on the other side of Vimy,” he said, clasping hands with the man nearest to him. The splotches of pale skin visible through the mud and dirt that coated his face shone fluorescently.

 

“You too, brother,” the pale man said.

 

“You a Beaver now?”

 

“You know it, big guy.” He smiled wryly and pointed to the tunnel entrance. “They switched me over to the Engineers because I’m small.”

 

“Lucky you.”

 

The Canadian flicked a chunk of mud off his trousers before reaching an un-gloved hand into his pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper. “Charlie’s in London, you know. I saw her on leave. She gave me this in case I saw you first.”

 

He handed it over. Klaus saw Wood’s hands shake when he took it, and almost missed overhearing his response. His voice dropped low when he asked, “What is she doing in London?”

 

“Nursing course.”

 

The eye contact between the two men was violent.

 

“I told her not to,” Wood said. His tone was accusatory, and the other man met his tone.

 

“You think I want her involved? She’s my sister!”

 

Wood raised his voice. “Goddammit, I know that! But you’ve always supported her coming over here! And now she’s going to be in the middle of all this shit. What if she gets hurt? What if she gets killed!?”

 

Klaus wondered if he should intervene. Hughes, watching beside him with rapt fascination, put a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Family business. Don’t get involved.” Klaus looked at him, lost. He hadn’t quite wrapped his head around what was going on yet, but it was starting to attract the attention of Reid, who had been pulled out of deep discussion with his second-in-command by the shouting.

 

“Wood! Lacroix! What’s going on over there?” he said, marching to where the two men were arguing.

 

“We’re fighting, sir,” Lacroix said.

 

“You’re right,” Reid said. “We’re fighting. We’re fighting the bleedin’ Germans, not each other! Sort out your issues quietly, like men. Last pair we had start a scrap got a potato masher tossed in their direction from No Man’s Land and believe me, we aren’t much further from the Hun than we were then. Those last two had to sort themselves out in Heaven, if you know what I mean. Don’t make me go get your commanding officer, Lacroix.”

 

Wood and Lacroix stood straight, side by side. “Yes, sir!” they said in unison.

 

They stood for a moment in silence, each daring the other to apologize first.

 

“It’s just… I’m worried about Charlotte,” Wood said, diplomatically.

 

“So am I,” Lacroix said.

 

“I’m not,” Klaus said from his position outside the dugout. Both Lacroix and Wood looked at him, unamused.

 

“As a third party with no knowledge of your relationships or history, I’d say you’re both overreacting.” He smiled. He was ready to pull some 21st century feminism on these barbarians. “Charlotte, right?”

 

They nodded.

 

“It sounds like Charlotte made up her own mind to go become a nurse. She understands the risk. How can she not? And yet, she made up her mind because she felt it’s the right thing to do. Don’t oppress her! Lift her up, men. Support women!” Klaus punched at the air to punctuate his point.

 

Wood was nodding along, used to Klaus’s antics, but Lacroix looked concerned.

 

“Who is this freak?” he asked out the corner of his mouth.

 

“Ah, this is Hargreeves. He’s alright.”

 

“Support women!” Klaus punched the air again. “Come on guys, join in. Support Charlotte!”

 

Wood pumped his fist half-heartedly. “Support Charlotte,” he echoed. He elbowed Lacroix in the ribs.

 

It was a rough start, but by the end of the day, chants of “Support women! Support Charlotte!” were breaking out spontaneously all down the front line.

 

 

_June 3, 1917_

 

Their artillery had been shelling the German lines since he arrived, but Klaus still hadn’t gotten used to the sound. The whistling of the explosives as they flew high overhead was just as terrifying as they had been on his first day, but he was finally able to sleep. Unfortunately, he was woken by a giant rat nibbling at his pocket. He wasn’t used to that either, and ran screaming from the sap, leaving Dave, bleary-eyed and sleep-ruffled, to face the giant rat alone.  

 

The other men never commented on how they spent all their time together. They must have figured it was an American thing.

 

It wasn’t as if Klaus wasn’t making an effort. The guys were quickly becoming more of a family than his own had ever been. They laughed at his stories, helped him when he was lost, and welcomed him into their fold as if he had been there from the start. They still teased him about being the World’s Worst German Spy, and he rolled with it, pleased to be a part of their shenanigans.

So when Renwick approached him after he had ran away from the rat as fast as humanly possibly, he pretended like he wasn’t out of breath, hadn’t screamed like a little girl, and did not get abruptly woken up from an erotic dream involving him, Dave, and a bathtub with a waterslide.

 

“’Sup,” Klaus said, lifting his chin in a nod that just screamed heterosexual male. Renwick stared at him. “Hi,” he said, providing the 1910s translation.

 

“Hargreeves, ya dilly dingbat, sometimes I wonder if yer bloody speaking the King’s bloody English at all,” Renwick said. It was Klaus’s turn to stare. If they ever asked, this would be the reason he would give on why he spent all his time with Dave. He could understand Dave when he spoke. After the flask of rum had been passed around, the rest of the guys practically reverted to another language.

 

“Me ‘n the guys need assistance,” Renwick continued as Klaus pondered the finer points of 1910s slang. “We were thinkin’ we’re probably all gonna die in the next few days so we may as well have some fun and we don’t wanna do a boner.”

 

“A what?” Klaus stared incredulously.

 

“A boner. A goof up. A faux pas, as they say in French.” He pronounced it like _fox pass_. Klaus wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not.

 

“And you need...?”

 

“You’re the craziest bugger in this place. We just wanna have some fun.”

 

“You realize this is like, the least fun place in the world, right?”

 

Renwick shrugged, still looking hopefully at Klaus. He had no idea why Luther loved being Number One so much. Being the ideas guy was exhausting. Almost as exhausting as getting tortured by Hazel and Cha-Cha, which, strangely enough, was giving him an idea…

 

* * *

 

“C’mon! Hargreeves is teaching us a new attack formation!”

 

“That’s not what I’m doing, Hughes.”

 

“It bloody well better be! I’m not stopping one with my belly tomorrow because I’m wastin’ time learning how to bleedin’ dance!”

 

That was, in fact, exactly what Klaus was doing. It wasn’t his fault the message got muddled when Renwick called on the rest of the guys to “have a little fun” before stand-down.

 

Being well-trained army boys, they fell into neat lines in front of Klaus as he turned around. They were within shouting distance of the front lines, but far enough back in the communication trench that they wouldn’t be interrupted.

 

“Right.” He was a little bit nervous. He’d never had to teach anyone anything before. He decided to roll with it and just let the boogie flow. “It’s time to get funky.”

…………………………………………

 

“To the left!” Klaus commanded his troupe of unknowingly dancing men like DJ Casper himself.

 

“Take it back now, y’all!” Renwick added a shimmy. Maybe he did realize he had just learned the Cha Cha Slide. That or he shimmied every time he advanced on enemy lines. It wouldn’t be surprising.

 

“One hop this time! Left foot, let’s stomp. Right foot, let’s stomp. Cha cha real smooth!”

 

“Hey,” a voice said behind him. Klaus startled, turned, and saluted all at once. Dave was behind him, carrying a letter. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to.” He looked past Klaus to the lines of cha-cha-ing soldiers. “Get lower, Patterson. You look like a rocking chair.”

 

Klaus stared. Dave shrugged. “I like dancing,” he said, as if that explained why he was absolute perfection.

 

“Of course you do,” Klaus said, watching Patterson bend his knees as they continued to cha-cha real smooth.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Klaus bit his tongue. It wasn’t even his horny monkey brain that was out of control these days. It was an abundance of emotion that caused his heart to runneth over; words poured out of him.

 

“You’re a romantic, David. Of course you can dance.” A solid recovery, he thought.

 

Dave smiled, dazzling as always, but shook his head. “I live in Queens. That’s why. There’s a place next door.”

 

He paused hesitantly, as if waiting for Klaus to probe further. Klaus had been on the other end of that silence far too many times to give in. Instead, he resigned himself to digging his emotional grave one shovelful of dirt deeper. “I’d like to see it one day,” he said quietly. Their eye contact held a moment too long for either of them to consider it casual.

 

A shell whistled past them on their right, hitting the ground and exploding in a chorus of shouts drowned out by the noise of the explosion.

 

“Slide to the right,” Harker said, and they all took off running towards the dugout with fear nipping at their heels.  

 

 

_June 4, 1917_

 

It was going to be a bad day. The morphine bottle was empty except for a thin line of clear liquid at the bottom of the bottle that Klaus wasn’t sure was there the night before. He left the cap off. It might have been rain water seeping in from the cracks in the cement. Still, it didn’t hurt to try. He extracted his syringe from under the scratchy wool military blanket and sucked up the remaining liquid. It looked even more pathetic in the syringe than it did in the vial. He had never re-used a needle this many times before. Even at his worst, down and out in the streets, he had opted for pills, or paid his bus fare for the extra four stops to get to the safe injection site to get some alcohol swabs and clean equipment.

 

But he was desperate and right handed, so he stuck the needle into the inflamed vein of his left arm and depressed the plunger, feeling slightly sick as he looked at the scabs that were clearly infected. He hoped they didn’t infect the entire vein. _Phlebitis,_ Kurtis had called it one night after he and Miranda had revived him. Miranda had a student with her that night, and she showed her student how to shove a rubbery tube up his nose to keep his airway open. Good times.

 

His arm burned.

 

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Dave whispered. Klaus didn’t realize he was awake. Meakin and Chads had stolen their two-man sap hole, so they were forced to take up cots in a bigger hole in the ground, sharing with Wood and Patterson. They, at least, were still asleep.

 

“I started when I was thirteen. I don’t know how to stop,” he said. The truth felt heavier in the air between them than it did when it still weighed on his chest.

 

“You were so young,” Dave said. It came out sounding like a question, and Klaus wanted to answer it. He wanted to tell Dave everything, because he knew Dave would try to help. That was why he couldn’t. Dave, with all of his friendly touches and bright smiles couldn’t touch the darkness that faced Klaus whenever the drugs started to wear off.

 

“It was the only way I found that got me through the night,” he said instead. It wasn’t a lie. “My father abused us.” Another half truth. “I ended up alone. I always ended up alone.” A lie, this time. He was never alone.

 

And Dave, with his soft, warm heart and his rough, warm hands, reached out to push the sleeve of Klaus’s shirt back up and began to wind a bandage around the scabbed and scarred skin. “You’re not alone anymore,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats on finally holding hands, boys. 
> 
> PSA: If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, I encourage you to look into local resources and see what your community has available. I’ve worked in the inner city of my community for a while, and I believe strongly in the principles of harm reduction (please use clean needles!) The link below is for the provincial health services of British Columbia, Canada, but I think it provides a great overview of what harm reduction is and why it works, including the concerns that many people have when places such as methadone clinics or safe injection sites are proposed. 
> 
> https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthlinkbc-files/substance-use-harm-reduction
> 
> Also sorry Pogo, I'm sure you look smashing in a bikini
> 
> ANYWAYS
> 
> Next time: It was the wrong time to discover Gore Vidal, the wrong time to fall in love, and the wrong time to be standing directly in the path of a curiously briefcase-shaped object falling from the sky. Dave Katz never did have good timing.
> 
> As always, historical info and writing jams are up at thevastydeep.home.blog and y'all can tweet me about my OCs @aumerled


	4. Interlude B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude B: It was the wrong time to discover Gore Vidal, the wrong time to fall in love, and the wrong time to be standing directly in the path of a curiously briefcase-shaped object falling from the sky. Dave Katz never did have good timing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting comfortable enough with myself that I really just want to introduce this chapter with DAVE IS SOFT AND MUST BE SAVED.
> 
> Seriously, thanks for reading and commenting on my self-indulgent historically accurate 60K+ fic. In return, I can promise you that they will bang eventually.

 

When the plane engine stuttered to life, Dave knew he would never see home again. 

Of course, home was more of a concept than a reality these days. Grafton certainly wasn’t home anymore- his mother and sister had made sure he knew that when Ma cried and Emily screamed and Zach clutched his comic book closer, too young to understand what was going on. New York wasn’t much of a home either, though the community of Jackson Heights had opened its multicoloured arms to him and welcomed him into their fold of castaways and misfits, runaways like himself from all over the world who escaped and were searching for a life where they could celebrate what made them different.

Dave didn’t want to be different.

Queens, New York stood in stark contrast to everything he had loved about his hometown of Grafton, Wisconsin. It was loud and busy and dirty and anonymous in ways that were foreign to any small town boy who stepped off a bus with a backpack containing only cotton underpants and a beat-up copy of Gore Vidal’s _The City and the Pillar._ He remembered the day he stepped off the bus clearly. It felt just like today; a moment that was almost missed because he was too busy committing it to memory. It was a day that marked a departure from everything he had known before. He could only move forward.

The sound of the plane rolling down the runway was drowned out by the cacophony of male voices shouting and laughing. It was nice, he supposed, to see so many young men excited about something. He wondered when he had begun thinking like an old man. He wasn’t even thirty yet. If what his friends in the anti-war movement said was true, he wondered if he’d make it to his thirtieth birthday. 

Dave Katz joined the army with the full expectation that he would die at age twenty-nine in the swampy jungles of Vietnam, because Dave Katz had nothing left worth living for.

 

* * *

 

He used to like himself.

 There was a time when he considered his honesty a virtue, his resolve strong, and his empathy a value to understanding and connecting with others. Now, he hated himself. He hated what he had done, hated what he wanted to do, and hated the undeniable truths about himself that came so naturally to the characters in his book. He opened the cover of the novel for what seemed to be the hundredth time since boarding the plane and thumbed over the inscription, caressing the letters inked into the paper.

 

_If happy I can be I will, if suffer I must I can._

_We can be your happiness._

_Yours,_

 

He left his thumb obscuring the name. It was silly, after everything that happened, to think that the inscription meant anything, let alone the invitation that it seemed to have posed when Dave first received the book as a gift. Still, he remembered a face in the back of the memory when he was told to leave Grafton, blurred as if it was an out of focus photo. Emily’s anger and his mother’s betrayal burned sharply, but it was Saul’s pity that had made him turn and board the bus to New York without looking back.

 He returned only once, for his father’s funeral.

Dave had still been lying in bed after a night of dancing at the Corduroy Club. It had taken him almost two hours to walk back to his rooms and he regretted turning down the handsome older man who had approached him earlier in the night. It would have been nice to have company on the walk, but he hadn’t quite gotten over the fear of asking someone to come home with him for the night. The desire was there, as was the urge to touch, but he found himself always making excuses to get away before he was faced with a proposition. He sighed, turning onto his stomach and resting his head on his crossed arms.

And then the letter came, pushed through the letterbox. It was written in his mother’s elegant slanted hand that disguised her discomfort with the English language- twenty five years on an American farm did little to break the phonetic habits of the Hungarian language. _Apa is dead_ , it said, scrawled across the centre of the paper. He turned it over. It was blank. No date for a funeral, no cause of death, no postscript.

The next day, Dave packed up his meager belongings, told his landladies that he might not be back, and caught the bus back to Grafton.

It was likely that he had missed the funeral. It was equally likely that his mother hadn’t written until she was out of mourning, well after Pa had been buried. Still, perhaps without Pa’s influence, his mother would find it in her heart to forgive him. If she let him return, maybe Emily would forgive him, in time.

 

* * *

 

 

“You shouldn’t have come back, Dave.”

Emily was standing behind him, little dog on a leash trailing behind her, sniffing at the overgrown grass surrounding the nearest row of gravestones.

“Ma wrote me,” he said by way of answer. He didn’t turn around to face her. He knew her voice well enough to place it anywhere. It haunted him still, the way she screamed, the venom in her voice when she pushed Zach behind her and asked him if he planned on corrupting her son, too. It had hurt, to see his most trusted confidante turn against him with just a glance of an ill-fated stolen kiss in a sunlit kitchen.

 “I told her not to.” Emily’s voice was cold.

“I thought-“

“Pa dying doesn’t change anything. This isn’t your home anymore, Dave.”

Dave turned, finally. “Can I tell you what happened? What really happened?” Dave was pleading, he knew. He was prepared to get down on his knees if he had to, just to make her understand.

Her voice cracked, and softened. “You’re not well, Dave. You’re sick.”

“I’m not!” He resisted the urge to shout. “It’s normal, it’s natural to feel- just read this and maybe you’ll understand-“ He began rummaging in his bag for the blue hardcover that he carried everywhere.

“It’s that stupid book that’s been putting these ideas in your head, Davey.” He stopped at the use of his childhood nickname and shook his head.  “It’s not real. It’s not how you’re supposed to be.”

The words stung, deep and sharp. He crumpled, falling to his knees in front of his father’s grave. Emily’s dog trotted up and sniffed his shoe before barking once and darting between its owner’s legs. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, shaking.

“You’re an adult, Dave. Figure it out.” She turned and started to walk down the row of graves, but she stopped and called over her shoulder, “don’t try to see Ma. She won’t survive it.”

 

* * *

 

“Your turn, Katz.”

Dave snapped back to reality with his buddy’s words. They were passing around a bottle of vodka, a thick bottle that needed two hands to hold securely. Naturally, the men in his platoon felt it more macho to dangle the neck of the bottle between two fingers, and they passed it to each other like a game of hot potato, daring the next to drop it. It reached Dave, and he leaned down to sniff it. It smelled like Emily’s nail polish remover. He took a swig, grimacing not because he was unused to the burn of hard liquor, but because this particular spirit not only smelled like acetone, it tasted like it as well. He secretly longed for Reynolds to pass around the needles and the little tin of white powder again. He didn’t have to stomach the taste, for one, and it made him fall asleep. He sputtered a little, but hid it under a cough. “What was the question?” he asked.

“Last kiss.” Dave sighed. He was too old for these sorts of games, but there wasn’t much else to do while not on duty. They were sitting on the floor of the tent, sprawled in a messy circle, taking turns asking each other increasingly personal questions until they inevitably became too distracted or too drunk to keep a train of thought.

His last kiss, of course, had been in the kitchen in his Grafton home. He saw the memory like a series of photographs, tainted by the aftermath like film exposed to the sun. He could see himself, younger, happier, sitting at the table with _The City and the Pillar_ open in front of him. He could see his brother-in-law leaning down to read over his shoulder, close enough that they were nearly cheek-to-cheek. He remembered thinking that if he turned his head, just slightly… Another still frame of the book slipping off the table, and another of both he and Saul dropping to their knees to pick it up. Then his memory’s prized photographs: their hands meeting, Saul’s covering his which covered the spine of the book, and Dave looking up and being unable to hold himself back any longer.

What happened next he remembered vividly, a technicolour memory of the way his fingers trembled under Saul’s when he leaned in and kissed him. He also remembered in crystal clarity the moment when Emily entered the kitchen and saw her brother leaning in, pressing his lips against her husband’s mouth, and that was the end of life as he knew it.

Since then, he had avoided any touch more intimate than a fumbling of hands in the dark, the hot press of breath against a neck, the awkward handshake that conveyed the finality of the encounter. _Thank you, very nice, I’ve forgotten your face already so if I see you again please show no signs of recognition_ , it said, and Dave didn’t argue.

If he could have something that lasted, he would take it in an instant and never let it go.

“Uh,” he said eloquently, halfway between deciding to lie completely or spin the story of his heart’s greatest disaster thus far into something socially acceptable by flipping the genders. He decided on the latter. His sweet Hungarian mother was always on about exorcising the demons within. Maybe this would help.

“It was with my brother’s wife. In the kitchen. He walked in on us.”

“Shit, Katz!”

“I thought I was a bona fide Don Juan, but look at him!”

“It wasn’t like that, guys. It wasn’t like I tried to seduce her, I just…” He trailed off. He wanted to say he got the wrong impression, but the words died in his throat. The implication was too strong. He couldn’t face a dishonourable discharge. This tent, these men, were his home now. After three months, he was officially no longer the FNG- he had proved his worth by shooting and being shot at, by protecting his brothers and in turn being saved by them. He had survived three months in the jungle, which was far longer than he had expected.

It turned out he was a pretty good shot, and having a talent went a long way in the army. He was held back for major skirmishes, treated like a sniper but without the gun, the training, or the extra pay. He pulled the trigger with a mixture of practice and hope, praying to a God he no longer believed in that he wouldn’t shoot his brothers and telling himself over and over again _it’s them or us, it’s them or us,_ a mantra that sing-songed around in his brain until it absorbed the guilt.

Killing had become a second nature, and he hated himself for it.

 

* * *

 

It was an evening that was bordering on ordinary. There had been a raiding party of VC soldiers that had encroached on their base earlier that afternoon, attempting to surprise them by coming under cover of the rainstorm that had threatened all morning. The raindrops had sprang off their helmets with a sound that had made Dave’s head ache. He had pinched the bridge of his nose, wiping his face of the warm water that drenched him despite the helmet and the rain poncho. He could feel his socks soaking through. He had looked back up just in time to see movement in the bush. It was close enough that were it one of his platoon, he would have made the requisite bird call they used to identify themselves. Dave had shot blindly into the bush, and a full-scale firefight had followed.

They miraculously suffered no casualties, so life in A Shau returned to normal following the surviving Viet Cong’s retreat. Dave was on night watch. Bradshaw offered to take it as a favour for saving his life, but Dave refused. He was, as he often was after claiming another’s life, looking forward to time alone, a respite from the company and closeness of the tent.

And so, Dave took the advance post for watch, and so sealed his fate.

It was well past midnight when he saw the flash of light in the sky. It was too bright to be a comet, too fast to be an airplane. He could see a few stars peeking out from between the canopy of trees, and it was against this he could make out the silhouette of an object, falling rapidly down to earth. Time seemed to slow, and his first thought of ‘bomb’ couldn’t reconcile with the look of the falling object. It would have to have been the biggest grenade Dave had ever seen; it was too small to be dropped from a plane, but too high to be thrown. A glint of silver caught the light of the moon, and he stared, helplessly, as the black square hit the ground beside him. He threw up an arm to cover his face, too late to run for cover, and the same blue light that had marked the beginning of its journey down to earth erupted out of the black box and consumed him whole.

 

* * *

 

He had expected fire to feel much hotter than this.

In fact, being burned to death felt rather like getting rained on.

He opened his eyes. He blinked, surprised that he still had eyes to open. It was raining. It was raining, and the jungle was gone. He was flat on his back staring up at an open sky, drops of water falling into his eyes and obscuring his view of the clouds above him. Dave looked around, wondering how the hell he got so far from base. Two figures approached from the distance, long-barreled guns slung over their shoulders. He glanced in the opposite direction. There was nowhere to run.

Dave pushed himself up on his knees and put his hands on his head. “Kong dook ban,” he said in a desperate attempt at the language. It was one of the few Vietnamese phrases he had learned. Don’t shoot. Sarge said it was useless, that VCs don’t take prisoners, but Dave figured he may as well try. The two figures stopped in front of him. They spoke, but the pounding of the rain was too loud. “Kong dook ban,” he said again, louder.

“Que?” One of the figures peered out from under his helmet. Curiously, he didn’t look Vietnamese at all.

Where was he, he wondered. The question manifested itself by the uptick of his voice when he said, “don’t shoot” again, this time in English.

“Canada?” the other man asked. Dave shook his head.

“American.”

“Ah,” the two men looked at each other in understanding, then turned and smiled at Dave. One of them offered a hand up. “Ambulance,” he said, pointing towards the building from which they had emerged. Dave nodded in false understanding, and walked towards the building.

 

* * *

 

The building was clearly set up as some sort of barracks. Through a shattered window opposite where he came in, he saw a tarp set up that covered a fleet of vintage ambulances, though they were far too beat up and mud-splattered to be fit for display. To his left was a room set up like an office. Old maps covered the table in the center of the room, and an old-fashioned phone was set up on a desk near the outer wall, next to a multitude of radios. There was only one occupant in the room who was consumed with the task of listening to one of the radios through an old earpiece. He looked up at Dave with a bored expression on his face and shooed him away. Dave turned, still as confused as he was before, and went down the corridor to his right.

The room to his right was as different as could possibly be from the map room. It was filled with men sleeping on thin mattresses on the stone ground. As he looked longer, he saw that some were awake, talking quietly in French, while others smoked in the corners of the room, lighting cigarettes from the candles they used as a source of light to write. There was an aura about the room, a hush that, despite the fact that it was filled with sounds, gave Dave the impression of entering a tomb. He had intruded, he knew that much, and made to back out of the doorway. His progress backwards was stopped by the advance of another man. They collided in the doorway, and the other man laughed, a whisper of what promised to be a deep and booming laugh had there not been thirty men asleep in front of them, and yanked Dave out of the room. They walked down the hall to the map room. He hadn’t realized that it was the same man. The serious look on his face when he listened to the radio made him look about ten years older, and his slouched posture in the chair betrayed his height- he towered over Dave by at least six inches.

“You needed something?” the man asked. He was undoubtedly American, at least, and Dave heaved a sigh of relief.

“I think I’m lost, sir,” Dave said.

“I don’t recognize you. Where’d you come from?”

“A Shau. 173rd Airborne. A…” He decided not to mention the fact that a square grenade fell from the heavens and blew him all the way out of the jungle. “A bomb fell on me and I think I have amnesia, sir.”

“You don’t need to call me Sir. I’m not your officer, man, I’m just a volunteer, like you. I don’t recognize the unit name. You say you can’t remember anything, eh? Not where the bomb went off?”

Dave blinked. “A Shau, like I said. Outside base. I was on night watch.”

“Jesus, kid, your French is worse than mine. A Shau… Soissons? Arras? Amiens? Any of those ringing any bells?”

“No, it was definitely A Shau.”

“And you were with the Field Service there?”

“What? No, I’m with the infantry.”

The man looked him up and down and hmm-ed approvingly. “You got a lot of guts, kid.”

Dave could feel his frustration rising. “I’m not a kid- look, I just want to get back to my unit and do my job.”

“Alright, don’t work yourself into a steam. We got someone coming up tomorrow who can help you out. I’ll write you a note so you don’t get shot for desertion. In the meantime, get some sleep. It’s been quiet in our sector in the run up to the offensive.”

Dave turned to walk back to the room on the right, but something in the way the other man spoke bothered him. Something wasn’t right.

“What offensive?” he asked tentatively.

“The advance on Vimy Ridge,” he said incredulously. “Geez, you weren’t kidding about the amnesia.”

 

* * *

 

Dave had always considered himself a reasonably smart guy. He had gone to college, done well in college, and been told by many that he was wasting his education by helping his Pa run his automobile shop in town.

He was a smart guy, and he had reasonably deduced three things. One, he was in France. Two, the year was 1917. And three, he had just joined the British infantry the day before the assault on Vimy Ridge. When asked what he was good at, he simply said, “shooting, sir,” and was assigned to support the 1st Canadian Division by firing artillery shells out of a contraption so foreign to him that he would have been more comfortable with a Civil War cannon. It looked sort of like the cannons he had seen on a trip to the Civil War museum in Arlington when he was a kid, but without the dramatic elegance. Artillery shells were nothing like cannonballs, he soon found out. His job was simple; he would load the shells into the big gun (the Howitzer, the other men called it), duck behind it, and cover his ears during the _bang_ of the explosion, then pull another shell out of the box and load another.

It was a long day, far away from the front lines but not out of range, as he learned when a German shell exploded over the Howitzer downrange on his left, pelting the men with red hot shrapnel, their screams echoing in his ears. “Stay on task, Katz!” someone yelled. He didn’t know who it was, or how they knew his name, but he was thankful that army discipline remained mostly the same throughout history. It was nice to feel that familiarity, even if it involved him getting yelled at.

The next four days were too hectic to think much about the impossibility of what had happened, and that lack of processing eventually worked its way into his recollection of events. Without the process of logic, he had very little trouble accepting that he had been swallowed up by a magical blue light and deposited in the middle of the First World War. Instead, what seemed to bother him the most was what his platoon had witnessed back in Vietnam. Had they also thought it was a new technologically advanced bomb? Or had he simply disappeared into the night and thought to have gone AWOL? The thought of his platoon having so little faith in him was jarring. And yet, the thought of being presumed dead was equally unappealing.

Then again, if he was reported MIA, would anyone care? He hoped his fellow Sky Soldiers would. They’d shared three months living in each others’ pockets; they had to notice his absence. Of course, the war would claim his friends, both their minds and some of their lives, and he would fade from memory with each friend that died over there.

Once he became used to the pattern and the noise, the monotonous work allowed him far too much room to think.

About two hours after he had begun fearing that he didn’t have the strength to lift another shell, his relief arrived and he made his way to the bombed-out building he and the other artillery men had been sleeping in for the past three nights. His feet dragged and the muscles in his arms screamed from overuse. He began to feel his eyes close as he plodded, one foot in front of the other, towards the makeshift barracks.

He could have sworn he was asleep before he collapsed to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Dave had expected to be awoken by the bugle call and the rush of men struggling off the ground and pulling their boots on like he had the last four days. Instead, he woke up naturally, a sunbeam hitting his face like a laser, with two tanned faces hovering over his. The older face, decorated with an impressive black moustache, looked weathered and worn, and reminded Dave of the intricate wooden carvings that the Chippewa women used to sell in town. He had begged his Pa for one in particular, a Thunderbird carved of dark wood, polished and detailed and beautiful, and the Elder kindly promised to keep it for him until his birthday had passed. Of course, Pa had spent the money at the bar instead, and Dave had learned never to expect anything from him again.

“Him.” The face opened its mouth and this single word emerged. The younger face looked like it belonged to a toddler, but seemed to be attached to the body of a man.

“You sure?” the toddler-man said. Moustache nodded. Toddler-man nodded back. Dave lay still, sure that he was still dreaming and if he didn’t move, these strange apparitions would disappear.

“Hello. I’m Hughes. This is Harker. We’re rejoining our battalion, into which you have been welcomed,” the toddler-man said. He sat back on his heels, making Dave realize that the two men had been kneeling directly over him, for some reason.

“Katz,” he said, sitting up slowly so Harker had time to remove his moustache from Dave’s personal space. “Where are we going?”

Hughes stood, offering Dave a hand up. As Hughes unfolded his lanky limbs, Dave was taken aback by how tall he was. He was well over six feet, which did nothing to dispel the image of a doll’s head on a man’s body. “We’re part of the North Staffordshire Regiment, 1st division. We’re meeting up with one of Kitchener’s units and heading out west to Wipers.”

Hughes’ combination of war slang and Beatles-esque accent made Dave’s brain hurt.

“Rest duty,” Harker contributed, giving Hughes a look like a disappointed father.

“Ah, right. Not to worry, Katz. It’ll be a proper break after this nonsense.” He waved his hand towards the Howitzer guns. “Captain Reid’s a class act. Takes care of his men. Which,” he slapped Dave’s back, “includes you.” Hughes and Harker each slapped him on a shoulder in tandem, then turned at the same time as if they’d choreographed it.

“Daylight’s burning,” Harker said, and Dave grabbed the pack he’d been using as a pillow and followed them out into the morning sun.

 

* * *

 

_May 21, 1917_

 

He heard the _plip_ before he saw the blue light, so he saw, in full and excruciating detail, the entire fall of the naked man, from the charred remaining crossbeams all the way to the straw-covered ground. He saw the bloodstained towel flutter away like a grotesque seagull, and, most disappointingly, he saw no trace of the source of the blue light. He did, however, see the shocked and confused face of the most beautiful man he’d ever seen before.

His dark hair was in disarray, plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood, which streaked his face and chest. He was wearing only an open jacket, which did nothing to conceal the smooth pale expanse of skin, marred only by a trail of hair leading to where the stranger had a hand slapped over his bits.

He looked like he’d been through hell. Dave expected he looked the same (albeit more clothed) when he arrived in 1917. Within an instant, there were at least ten revolvers trained on the man, and Patterson had seized a rusty scythe, which he had been using earlier to entertain the others with the worst magic tricks Dave had ever seen. It was impressive, considering he lived in Queens for three years. The men were accusing him of being a spy, but Dave knew a time traveller when he saw one. Maybe. The naked man looked strange enough to come straight out of an H.G. Wells novel, at least. Maybe he could help Dave time travel home.

Defying the logic that screamed at him from the sane part of his brain that _hadn’t_ accepted time travel as a possibility, he stepped into the circle of guns, and before he knew it, he was outside with the naked man, handing over the only extra pair of army trousers that the 1st Division had between them. The guy introduced himself again as Klaus, which _was_ a suspiciously German name, and he might have been lying when he said he knew a guy who could time-travel them out of the War, but he looked at Dave with the biggest, sweetest, most beautiful eyes, and Dave Katz wondered if everything he had ever endured that caused him pain had led to this moment of meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gore Vidal was an American author who wrote The City and the Pillar, a novel that caused a huge scandal and forced Vidal to write under a pseudonym for years. It’s about a young man coming of age and discovering his homosexuality, and is the first postwar novel about an explicitly gay man who is portrayed sympathetically and isn’t killed off at the end (don’t let this fool you- it’s still not a happy ending) 
> 
> The first line of the inscription in Dave’s book is from William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and since I’m a hopeless nerd for both Faulkner and biblical allusions, it seemed appropriate. (In the Hebrew Bible, Absalom is the son of King David who usurps him and forces David into exile)
> 
> Today we learn about American ambulance volunteers over at https://thevastydeep.home.blog/2019/06/16/the-american-ambulance-field-service-and-friends/
> 
> Next: The earth rocks, the sky shakes, and the drugs run out. There are an awful lot of ghosts making themselves seen at the dawn of battle.


	5. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 3:10 in the morning on June 7, 1917, nineteen mines are set to explode under the area surrounding Messines, Belgium. 
> 
> This is least of Klaus's worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on tight and pump the jams over @ https://thevastydeep.home.blog/2019/06/19/irlml-playlist-3/

_June 5, 1917. Late._

 

“Here,” said Dave, uncurling his fist to shove a handful of pills at Klaus. “Don’t take them all at once.”

Klaus held out a sweaty palm. He didn’t realize how bad it was shaking until Dave had to hold his hand steady as he dropped two white pills into his hand.

“Start with these. I’ll hold onto the rest until you’re back to normal.”

Klaus placed the pills on his tongue and swallowed them dry. “Pretty bad if this is normal,” he said. He reached out and grabbed at Dave’s other hand, the empty one. “Thanks,” he said, and he meant it.

Klaus hadn’t expected Dave to understand the crawling under his skin that started that afternoon, when he had finally run out of Mystery Pills in his jacket and emptied the vials of morphine he had stolen from the Casualty Clearing Station they passed on their way up to the Front. The injection site he’d been using, the big vein running from between his thumb and first finger, up the centre of his arm and disappearing under a raised white scar that cut across his forearm, had become obscured under infected scabs and pockets of pus. It was truly disgusting, but he bandaged it thick enough to prevent the wounds from soaking through, and the smell of infection was hidden within the foul miasma of decay that crept heavily through the trenches. Klaus thought he should care more about the red flush of infected blood that was spreading slowly up towards his shoulder, but as shells burst above him and sprayed his comrades with burning pieces of shrapnel, he had more pressing concerns than sepsis.

“Don’t you want to know what they are?” Dave asked. The corner of his mouth quirked up as if he was afraid to smile.

“Not really.”

“They’re morphia pills. Don’t fall asleep on your watch.”

Klaus mock-saluted. “Yes sir.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time his watch was over, he could feel the morphine beginning to wear off and went to find Dave. It was sometime around three in the morning. Whispers were making their way down the trench about the coming attack starting in 24 hours.

“I heard a rumour,” one of them said, and Klaus felt terribly sad for a second, thinking of Allison. He didn’t miss home, exactly, but he did miss his stupid fucked up siblings. He was going to die here, alone, in a different time. _Some corner of a foreign field,_ his mind supplied. He figured that was something Ben would say, if he was here. He wished he were here.

“Klaus!” Dave called him from inside the entrance to the dug-out. He was holding up a cup of tea. “The train just came up with fresh water!” Dave’s smile was out of place in the mire of the front lines. It belonged on a Christmas morning in the midwest, or in that sweet spot between drunk and sick at one in the morning, dancing with beautiful strangers in a club and unaware that within the next half hour you would find yourself on your knees in the bushes puking your guts out while someone calls 9-1-1 (again) and the staff at the club yell at you for bringing a glass of water outside for you to wash your mouth out with after you’re done puking up the vodka tonics that you hate drinking but come up nicer than any other alcohol you’ve tried.

He couldn’t die. He had to get Dave out of here.

“You mean it doesn’t taste like maggots?” he asked, taking the offered cup and letting the steam warm his face. The night had been windy, and the humidity from the steam made him more aware of how chapped his lips were.

“I, for one, miss the added protein,” Wood chimed in as he climbed the dugout stairs, cradling his cup of tea as if it were made of gold. “C’mon, Reid wants us to help the bloody diggers for a spell.”

Captain Reid ordered the three of them, plus Renwick, who was unfortunate enough to be dawdling on his way back from his watch, to join a line of Australians passing sandbags man to man deep into the tunnels underneath the dugout. The tunnels were dank and suffocating, lighted with vile incandescents that coloured every man’s face a waxy yellow. Klaus closed his eyes after a while, focusing only on feeling the heaviness of the sandbag thrown at him by Renwick and the feel of Dave’s calloused hands on his when he passed them further into the abyss.

It was tedious work, and long, and by the end of it, Klaus was exhausted, sweaty, and nauseous. He and Dave and Renwick and Wood trudged single file up the tunnel back to the trench, where Captain Reid was waiting for them. He waved away their salutes.

“You four, on rest until 02:00 hours tomorrow. You’ll be going over with the Kiwis and the Ulsters after the dust settles.”

“The dead man’s respite,” said Wood, as Reid walked away, berating Hughes for standing too tall at his machine gun post.

Renwick snorted. “Well, don’t come into my sap hole, because I’m gonna spend my last day wanking to a picture of your girlfriend.”

“You wanker!” Wood yelled, tackling Renwick to the ground and splashing around in the muck before Reid called out, “Quit yelling or I’ll shoot you myself!”

Klaus and Dave exchanged a glance that they both understood to mean _let’s go somewhere quiet_ and they ducked into the dugout to find a hole in the wall that held a couple of cots and as few rats as possible.

Dave pulled him into the deepest sap he could find, close to the officers’ headquarters. It was barely big enough for the two cots someone had stuffed in there. They were separated by barely a foot, and Klaus sat on the one to the left, exhausted.

“Sorry, Klaus. You must be suffering something fierce.” Dave reached into his pocket and pulled out the remainder of the morphia pills.

Klaus took them and swallowed all four. “I don’t know why you’re so nice to me.”

Dave moved to sit next to him on the cot. It groaned under their weight.

“You’re my friend.”

“You just met me.”

“You’re still my friend.”

“I shouldn’t be. I brought you here.”

“You didn’t mean to.” Dave was looking at him with his clear blue eyes. Klaus felt naked, and not in a sexy way.

“I’m really fucked up.” He flourished his hand around for dramatic effect.

Dave caught his hand in the air and clasped it in both of his. “You pulled me out of the Vietnam War.”

“Oh.”

“I get it. We all got fucked up over there. We had to.”

Klaus remembered the faint bruises and inflamed veins of Dave’s arm, and suddenly it all made sense.

“I’m sorry.”

Dave cut him off, still holding onto his hand. “Don’t be. I guess it technically hasn’t even happened yet. This time stuff is confusing.”

Klaus laughed. It came out in a single huff, and he thought of Five getting stuck in the future for forty years. Of course this shit had to happen to him. Diego could deal with this. Luther could beat up the entire German army, probably. Five could jump away, and Allison could probably stop the war in a moment if she got hold of a radio.

“What do you normally do when you get stuck?” Dave asked. His eyes were shiny in the light.

“Uh, well. I’ve never done this before.” He considered adding a ‘darling, please be gentle’ in there for dramatic effect, but he wasn’t sure how an all-American 50s boy would react to an overplayed flirtation by a twink from the future stuck in 1917.

He had an idea though, when Dave lowered his voice and said, quietly, “I’m surprised. It seems like you’ve tried everything, once.” Dave flushed, maybe, or maybe it was the sunrise filtering through the tunnels of the dugout playing softly on his skin.

Either way, he was breathtaking.

“Not everything,” Klaus whispered, leaning in. Dave’s eyes widened, and he clasped Klaus’s hand a little bit tighter.

A single drop of water landed on Dave’s forehead, but it may as well have been a hurricane for the way it ripped apart the tension building between them. Dave jerked away from Klaus and looked up at the roof of the dugout where a crack in the concrete was funneling water directly onto the head of the cot in an increasing stream. He sighed and offered the other cot to Klaus. Klaus took the one step that separated the two cots, collapsed on the dry one, and opened his arms.

“Come here. Make sure I don’t die in the night.”  Dave laughed and rolled onto the cot and into Klaus’s outstretched arms. He held him there for a moment before the cot’s legs crumpled and they collapsed to the ground.

 

* * *

 

“Ready for the fireworks, boys?” Klaus woke up with a start as Renwick hopped on top of his cot and banged his spoon on his mess tin. The forceful banging unleashed a drizzle of cold tea onto Klaus’s cheek, and he held up the tarp that had slipped off of his face, no longer protecting him and Dave from the leak over their heads.

“Quit yer cuddlin’, you Yankee buggers! We got Hun to blow up!” Renwick left as suddenly as he had come, banging his tin and waking up the rest of the division, dugout by dugout. The depth of the hole he and Dave had ended up in was deep enough that he could barely hear the rumbling of explosions that had persisted, unrelenting, for the past seventeen days. Klaus knew it was the prelude to an assault but he had assumed he would have figured out how to get out of the First Goddamn World War by now and hadn’t quite managed to consider the seriousness of his situation before now. He really should have run away a week ago. He really should run now.

And then Dave wrapped a hand around his wrist and looked up at him with sleepy blue eyes and asked, “Were we actually- and Klaus says, “I think so, yeah,” and they both laughed as they rolled off their shared cot, on which they both were fully aware that they had fallen asleep in each others’ arms. They pulled on their soaking wet boots, and Klaus knew that he wasn’t going anywhere without Dave.

 

* * *

 

 

When they emerged from the dugout, it was still dark. Shellfire lit up the sky like floodlights outside the bowling alley back home on Neon Bowling Fridays. Klaus never wanted to go bowling again. Wood and Patterson made their way over to them, each holding an extra cup of tea. Patterson shoved the tin into Dave’s hand, pulled out a flask without saying a word, and dumped a healthy share of rum into each of their drinks before nodding briskly and carrying on down the line.

“Don’t mind him,” Wood said. The tightness in his jaw betrayed his casual demeanor. “He don’t like explosions. Nearly got his legs blown off at Delville Wood. Y’shoulda seen the burns, poor bugger.”

“I’ll go talk to him,” Dave said, before clapping both Klaus and Wood on the shoulder and taking off down the trench.

“Strange guy,” Wood said. “Too kind for the likes of us.”

“Yeah…” Klaus trailed off, admiring the way Dave’s ass looked in his uniform as he stopped to talk to Renwick. A shell whistled by, striking the second line behind them. As screams began to echo forward to their position, a soldier emerged from the walls of the trench, covered in mud with blood streaming out from the hole where half his head had been.

“Please, tell my mother-“

Klaus turned his back to the dead soldier and felt a familiar wave of fear sweep through him. The rum wasn’t enough. There was no way in hell he was going to make it through the day. Maybe being killed here would be fine. Maybe then the ghosts would stop talking to him. He could come back as a ghost, like Ben, and then maybe they’d leave him alone. He’d be just another lost, fucked up soul. No one special.

Then again… He thought of Dave. Of how his latest fuck up (however accidental) had displaced this beautiful man who had offered him friendship without any conditions, who had attached himself to Klaus’s side and stolen morphine for him when the ghosts started to come back, who talks to him like he matters. Like he isn’t a disappointment.

“Hey, Wood. You have anything stronger than rum?” Klaus asked. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could survive in the 1910s with their lack of sophisticated street drugs, but he was damn sure going to try.

“Nah mate, but you could try Meakin. His gal sends him the fancy care packages. Even gets cigars every so often. Lucky bugger gets a good gal and good chocolate.”

“I think I need something stronger than chocolate.”

“Just go talk to Meakin, Hargreeves.” Klaus nodded his approval and left Wood to be cheerful at someone else. Meakin was always easy to find. He was usually surrounded by the privates, teaching them bawdy songs or talking about his gal back home. Klaus would watch, sometimes, while he was smoking with Dave on the bales outside the barn, and comment about the privates’ hero worship of Meakin. He was handsome and charismatic, certainly, and Klaus posited the theory that everyone in the army was gay, if only for Meakin. Dave, as usual, gave a non-answer (the bastard) and asked Klaus if he was jealous.

“Of Meakin? Nah, too much work to have people adore you all the time.”

Dave laughed. “How is it too much work? You don’t have to do anything except bask in the praise!”

“Oh, young one,” Klaus said, turning towards Dave and patting him mockingly on the head. “You have much to learn in the ways of the world.”

Dave batted his hand away, still laughing. “I’m older than you, Hargreeves.”

“Well, technically, I’m still alive further in the future, so I think that counts for something, David.”

Dave rolled his eyes and leaned back against the coat he had hung up on the splintered wood of the white peeling window frame. They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to Meakin teach his followers _Mademoiselle from Armentières_ before Klaus broke the silence.

“People put you on a pedestal. They hold you up to a standard of perfection that’s… unachievable. And sometimes, you fuck up and everyone abandons you, because they never really cared about you at all. Just the idea they had of you in their heads.”

Klaus’s cigarette had burned down to the tip, and he flicked it into the mud below. Dave offered him his, half-smoked and warm from his mouth. Klaus shook his head and brought his knees up to his chest. Dave reached over and stuck his cigarette in between Klaus’s lips anyways, and said “It doesn’t sound like you’ve ever had a real friend before.”

Today, Meakin was alone. He was sitting on a wooden box just inside the entrance to the dug-out, using the light from the passage to read a letter. His handsome features were softer than they usually were, and Klaus thought that in another world, (or a Dave-less world) he might have tried his luck. But as it was, it was the morning of an impending battle, another ghost had materialized at Klaus’s side, and he really needed some sort of high.

“Meakin! My man, how are you?” Meakin looked up and raised an eyebrow. Unlike their brothers-in-arms, Meakin made an effort to keep his face scrubbed clean, and he was one of the few that had visible eyebrows under flakes of mud and dirt.

“What do you want, Yank?”

“Oh, come on. That’s not a nice thing to say to someone you’re about to die next to!”

Meakin sighed. “I’m going to ask my girl to marry me if I come back,” he said.

“Oh.” Klaus said, wondering why he was the first to know. “That’s lovely.”

“I’m not scared to die, you know.”

“Okay.”

“I’m scared that I’m going to survive this bloody war and go back home and sell fish and chips for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty shitty career prospect.” Klaus said, twitching slightly as more ghosts, some yelling in German and some chattering in French and English and Scots emerged from No Man’s Land and followed him like a procession.

“Shut up, Hargreeves,” Meakin said. “I don’t want her to know what a bastard I’ve become. How many people I’ve killed.”

A German ghost missing an arm walked out of the huddle of dead men and approached Klaus and Meakin. In slow, accented English, he said simply, “No difference” and disappeared back into the trench wall. Klaus gulped as more ghosts began to approach. Some walked over to Meakin, trailing intangible hands over his letter and the photo of his girl he had placed next to it on the box. They looked sad. All of them looked sad.

“I don’t think what you’ve done in the war makes you a bad person.” Klaus looked at the ghosts standing behind Meakin for confirmation before continuing. “I think that your girl-“

“Marlene.”

“I think that if Marlene loves you enough to marry you, she’ll love you enough to understand…”

“War changes a man,” one of the ghosts finished. He had a gas mask in his hand and was wearing the North Staffordshire knot on his lapel. The skin around his eyes was blistered and red. There was a clean bullet hole through his neck.

“To understand that war changes a man,” Klaus repeated, carefully.

Meakin had turned around to pick up his kit bag, but he froze at this. He turned around and narrowed his eyes at Klaus.

Klaus’s heart caught in his throat. Had he just accidentally said some Nazi propaganda? Wait, there were no Nazis yet. Did Meakin know he just stole that bit of wisdom from a dead guy?

“You know, my best friend from home used to say the same thing. He died before you got here. Gas attack. Right here, in these trenches. He panicked once he went blind and got turned around. Hopped out of the sodding trench right into sodding No Man’s Land and a bloody buggering sniper got him. I caught his body as he fell. Broke two of my bloody fingers and I didn’t get a single day in the field hospital for it. Bloody Jimmy.”

The ghost, whom Klaus assumed was Jimmy, grinned at Meakin.

“Oi, ghost boy,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah?” answered Klaus. Jimmy was suddenly less scary than he had been before. Maybe it was because he had a name, and a past.

“Tell Meakin I watched his girlie take a bath last week.” He grinned again.

“I’m not telling him that.”

“Who?” Meakin asked.

“Nothing. Now, about this secret drug stash?” Jimmy and the other ghosts all groaned.

“Come on, man!”

“I just wanta bloody talk to someone who isn’t one of these dead wankers.”

“You’re dead too, you bloody poof.”

“I ain’t a poof, mate, and you know it!”

“I saw you give the sergeant-major a blowie for a tin of peaches!”

“That’s not bent, that’s hungry.”

“Like you wouldn’t suck a knob for a cookie!”

Klaus clapped his hands over his ears as the ghosts got more heated. At least they were ignoring him, for the time being. Meakin pulled a tin marked “Forced March” triumphantly out from his kit and shook out a couple of white pills for Klaus, and a pair for himself.

“Hey, Hargreeves. Sorry about the girly bullshit. This place gets to a man sometimes,” Meakin shook his head and swallowed his pills, washing them down with his rum-laden tea. “Being surrounded by death all the time… dead bodies, the guns… sometimes I think a man in the trenches is closer to death than to life.”

“Some of us more than others,” Klaus said grimly, swallowing the pills and making his way back to where Captain Reid was beginning roll call.

 

* * *

 

 

“Now,” said Reid, twirling his revolver in his right hand and smoking a cigarette in his left.

“Talented man,” Klaus muttered, and Wood and Dave muttered their agreement.

“Out here, we move as a unit. The Ulsters will be on your left and the Aussies on the right. Mines are gonna blow in ten minutes. _Do not advance_ until I give the go ahead. We will wait for the dust to settle but not long enough for the Jerries to regroup. Our objective is to take those four lines of German trenches and hold them. No more, no less. The Kiwis are going to liberate Messines. If all goes well, we will have the town, the ridge, and Hill 60 by tonight. Are we clear on our mission?”

A chorus of “yes, sir” came from the gathered North Staffordshires.

“Wood. Patterson. Renwick. Meakin. Chads. Katz. Hargreeves. Harker and Hughes will cover your advance on the guns. Take the left, but don’t get too antsy. Wait for my signal.”

Reid turned to the next group, and the remaining soldiers followed him the opposite direction down the trench. Harker and Hughes ascended to their machine gun. They looked more like father and son than a pair of British soldiers, Harker with his bushy black moustache and a quiet wit and Hughes with lanky limbs and a baby face.  Klaus wondered for a moment if his father would be proud of him to see him risking his life and fighting for something. No, he decided. Reginald wouldn’t have cared.

Besides, it wasn’t as if Klaus had any misconceptions about why he was here. He didn’t join to _save the country_ or _fight for freedom_ or any of that bullshit. He had no choice, and the only reason he hadn’t run yet is because…

Dave nudged him with a broad shoulder. “I hope I get a shower after this,” he said. Klaus did a double take. He hadn’t truly appreciated how handsome Dave was before now, but in the absence of all hope, he was a square-jawed beacon of desire. His unruly brown curls were squashed down under his helmet, and he reeked of gunpowder and sweat and damp, but he looked incredible, like Klaus’s first GI Joe sex dream. But it was more than that.

Every time he let himself imagine touching Dave, his typical sexual fantasy felt wrong. Instead of the back of a sweaty, loud club, he was teleported to a sunlit kitchen with yellow linoleum and white wooden cupboards. Instead of holding a drink in one hand and a joint in the other, he would be flipping eggs and humming along to the radio playing softly in the background. He would be wearing what was clearly one of Dave’s shirts; it hung long on him and brushed against his thighs when he danced around the kitchen. Then: his favourite part. Dave would pad into the kitchen barefoot, with his hair askew and dark circles under his eyes, but he would have brushed his teeth first because Dave always brushes his teeth when he wakes up, no matter the time of day. He would wrap his arms around Klaus from behind and kiss his cheek, and say, “looks delicious, baby,” and Klaus would lean back into his chest, letting his shirt splay open under his hands and say, “they’ll be done soon,” and Dave will kiss his neck and whisper, “I wasn’t talking about the eggs,” and then…

He hadn’t let himself get any further. It was way too hard to jerk off in a room full of dudes, not that he hadn’t tried. And succeeded. It wasn’t _fun_ to jerk off in a room full of dudes. Or at least not these kind of dudes whom Klaus was certain wouldn’t enjoy the show. So instead, he thought of his father telling him what a disappointment he is and his boner would become virtually concave and he would continue on his day, hauling sandbags and watching for German attacks through the periscope, and then lay down next to Dave and count the number of times he could tell himself “ _don’t mess this up”_ before he fell asleep.

Dave looked at him expectantly. Right. They had been having a conversation.

“Have showers been invented yet?” Klaus asked. It was a stupid thing to say. He should say something nice. Something supportive. Maybe something about how he should have tried harder to figure out how to get them back to their original times.

It must have shown on his face, because Dave looked around at the other guys, and seeing that they were occupied (chatting, praying, reading letters over and over, as if memorizing words from their mothers would take them back home), reached out and held Klaus’s hand.

“It’s alright,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Dave tucked their joined hands behind them and moved to stand shoulder to shoulder.

Klaus shook his head. “I should have tried harder.”

Dave squeezed his hand. “For what it’s worth, Klaus, I didn’t think I was going to make it out of Vietnam either. At least this way, I got to meet you.”

Klaus felt his heart rate speed up. “Dave…” he said. He wanted to touch him, but it wasn’t the right time. He should have kissed him last night when he had the chance. Instead, he said, “I think you’re the first friend I’ve ever had,” and Dave smiled his Christmas-morning smile at him. Their hands stayed where they were, joined together and hidden from view.

 

* * *

 

Klaus’s heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest when the first mine exploded.

The ground roiled and shifted under him. They all lay on their stomachs in the dirt a few feet into No Man’s Land, protected only by the darkness. “In case the trench caves in,” Reid had said. He was in the same position some metres down the line, surfing the tremors and trying, like the rest of them, to keep his head covered when dirt and bones and rocks rained down on them. They bounced off Klaus’s helmet like tinny gunshots inside his head. Dave was holding his hand again.

“Woah,” Klaus said. “That was-“

He was cut off by another explosion, and another, and the earth continued to rumble and shake as trench walls began to crumble and they crawled forward to avoid falling backwards into the concrete river expanding behind them. Klaus shielded his eyes and watched the next mine go, a column of fire reaching up into the sky, and bearing back down with hundreds of pounds of earth shattering across the desolation of No Man’s Land. Another and another and another burst, lighting the sky in angry oranges and reds. The silence that followed was as unbearable as the heat.

It was an eternity before the explosions ended. The air was filled with debris and smoke, and Klaus couldn’t see anything when he raised his head to look. One of the men farther down the line was the first to regain his senses, yelling, “Shells! Incoming!” and all the men down the line scrambled to their feet and headed backwards to the trench.

“Let’s go, Dave,” Klaus said, pulling on Dave’s hand. Dave didn’t move. He was still lying on his belly, eyes closed, right hand holding the silver Star of David he always wore, lips moving rapidly and silently. Klaus tugged harder, getting Dave’s attention. Dave was pale, and looked more afraid than Klaus had ever seen him. “We need to go,” he said again, and Dave nodded. He didn’t let go of his necklace.

The trench was only a few feet behind them, but the mass of men scrambling for access to the ladders created a bottleneck that left them exposed in No Man’s Land.

“Never liked ladders anyways,” Klaus said, as he let go of Dave and jumped, feet first, into the softest looking pile of dust and concrete he could find.

It was not as soft as it looked.

Klaus got to his feet weakly, shaking the leg that had landed on a sharp shard of concrete debris. Drops of blood shook off his pant leg. Dave didn’t hesitate, turning around and attempting a graceful rappel into the trench. He lost his footing part way down, and slipped backwards. Klaus caught him by the armpits, and they took off running (or hobbling) down to the safety of the dugout.

Klaus heard a shell burst behind them, but he didn’t look back. Dave was in front of him, and they were going to make it.

 

* * *

 

They sat huddled at the bottom of the stairs, welcoming their fellow North Staffs into their huddle as they arrived, disoriented and terrified, from their position on the front lines. Wood was silent, for once, as he hauled Chads past Klaus and Dave to the dressing station. Chads was hopping on one leg supported by Wood and one of the privates. His other pant leg was ripped and soaked through with blood. His lower leg looked like it was hanging on by the tendons at the knee, and his eyes were blank as he quietly whistled _Take me back to dear old Blighty_.

Patterson had crumpled into the corner furthest from the stairs. His face was covered in a slimy grey muck, and he rocked back and forth, occasionally muttering “we’re never making it out of here” and “I can’t go out there again.”

“That’s Renwick’s brains on his face,” Meakin whispered, as he stumbled down the stairs, carrying an unconscious soldier who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Klaus pulled one of the blankets off a cot and approached Patterson slowly.

“Hey, Patterson,” he said gently. “I’m going to clean you up, okay?” No response. Klaus approached him from the side (a trick he had learned from associating with paranoid junkies) and tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder. Patterson raised his head. His eyes were unfocused.

“We’re going to die down here,” he repeated, and Klaus used the edge of the blanket to start wiping the grey matter off Patterson’s face. He didn’t know how else to respond.

“At least you didn’t die up there,” a voice behind him said. Klaus could feel the chill run down his spine, familiar and uncomfortable. “Don’t be a coward, Hargreeves. Look at me.”

Klaus finished wiping the brains off Patterson before turning, slowly and facing the man whose brains he held in his hand.

“Hey, Renwick,” he said quietly. The screeching of the shells pummeling the trenches above their heads was enough to drown out his voice.

“Look at this- proof that I really did have a brain!”

“Renwick-“ Klaus started, but Renwick held up a finger to shush him.

“Don. My name is- was Don,” he said, straightening his collar. From the front, he looked almost normal, but Klaus could see the fractured edges of his exposed skull when he turned his head left or right.

“If you live, can you make sure my last letter gets to me mam?”

“Yeah, Don,” Klaus said. “I can. I will.” Renwick turned around, giving Klaus the full view of the cavity in his head.

“And Hargreeves,“ Renwick added, “Don’t be so scared of us. Some of us are still your friends, even though we’re dead.”

 

* * *

 

The dugout was crowded with ghosts by the time Reid descended the stairs. Meakin’s drugs were bullshit.

“On your feet, men! Dust has cleared and the Jerries left their line unmanned!”

Patterson began rocking back and forth again, whimpering. The shells were still bursting above them, shaking the concrete roof of the dugout and dusting them with powder each time.

“Shell shock?” Reid asked, observing Patterson with a clenched jaw.

“I think so, sir.” Wood said. “I can take him up to the CCS-“

“We need every man out there,” Reid said. He looked at Patterson with sympathy. “General’s orders.”

He turned and jogged up the stairs, not even flinching when a shell exploded over his head.

“I heard he once grabbed a live grenade and lobbed it back at the bloody Jerry who threw it,” Meakin said. Wood whistled lowly.

“I believe it,” he said, before gesturing at the entrance to the dugout. “After you.”

Meakins shook his head and told Klaus, “Get Patterson out of this hole.” He climbed up the steps and disappeared into the sunrise. Wood followed, and turned at the top of the stairs.

“Don’t let them catch you dawdling or you’ll get a court mar-“ Wood was cut off by a shell colliding with the roof of the dugout. A chunk of concrete separated on impact and collided with Wood’s head, knocking him out of the dugout and out cold.

“Shit,” was all Dave said, before the ceiling collapsed.

 

* * *

 

It should have been dark.

It should have been dark because he should have been dead.

Even if he wasn’t dead, being buried under a fuckton of concrete and dirt should have made it pretty dark.

But it wasn’t.

Klaus didn’t dare move, in case the blue light went away and he was left in darkness.

His hands were up in front of his face and were bathed in the blue light, which seemed to be coming from the rocks and concrete slabs that formed a cave about him.

“Good thing these rocks didn’t fall on us,” he said out loud. Someone groaned in response. “Davey? That you?”

“I’m good, Klaus. Are we dead?” Dave’s voice was coming from the ground behind him.

“I feel like shit, so I don’t’ think so. It’s not usually so-“ Klaus cut himself off. This wasn’t the time to talk about how Death refuses to give him the time of day. A shame, because She’s smokin’ hot. Sometimes literally, but Klaus could get down with that.

“I’m going to try to move around a little bit.” So Klaus shuffled a little bit to the right, to see if he could get closer to where Dave was. A piece of rubble crashed down on his left.

“Shit!” He jumped as it shattered and pieces of concrete skidded across the ground. “Maybe I won’t move. I’ll just stand here.”

“Hey, Klaus?” Dave asked. He sounded small, all of a sudden.

Klaus chanced a look. He turned his head and saw Dave’s torso, sticking out from under a pile of rubble. The rocks above their heads vibrated, and Klaus wondered, for a moment, if he was making the blue light. Maybe the ghosts were holding up the rocks? That was a nice thought. He’d give being sober another go if his new ghost friends saved his life. And Dave’s. Especially Dave’s.

So Klaus said, “Give me a minute, darling. I might be holding up these rocks with my mind.”

And Dave said, “I don’t doubt it, Klaus Hargreeves.”

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, hands outstretched and concentrating on levitating rocks, or ghosts levitating rocks, or summoning ghosts to hold up rocks, but by the time he heard a voice (a real, corporeal voice, not a ghost voice) saying, “There’s no fucking way any bugger could have survived all these bloody fucking rocks,” and another retorting, “they’re not rocks, you bloody sotting wanker. It’s bloody fucking concrete,” Klaus could have cried. He really had to pee.

Harker and Hughes finally cleared away enough rubble to expose the Magic Cave that Klaus had made, and Hughes characteristically exclaimed, “What the bloody fucking fuck did you do, you bloody fucking wanker?” while Harker smoothed his moustache thoughtfully before simply offering, “arch formations,” to which Hughes rolled his eyes and offered Klaus a hand out of the hole. His bladder ached.

“I can’t move until you get Dave out.”

“He alive?”

“I’m alive!” Dave called. “But-“

“Bloody miracle,” Harker said.

“You Yanks must be protected by that big bloody bird that you always fucking go on about,” Hughes said, but he began clearing rock and concrete away to make a big enough space to get Dave out.

Harker dropped down into the hole with Hughes they lifted the slab of concrete off of Dave’s legs. He pulled himself backwards and collapsed on his back at Klaus’s feet.

Klaus looked down. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Dave smiled.

Hughes brushed the dirt off his pants. “Looks like Patterson didn’t make it.” He gestured to Klaus’s left, but Klaus refused to look in case he lost concentration again and dropped the rocks.

“What’re you doing, Hargreeves?” Harker asked.

“I’m holding up the rocks with my mind.” Klaus responded.

“Um-“ Dave said, laying where he was.

“Hargreeves has bloody lost it,” Hughes said

“I have not,” Klaus argued. “The blue light is because of my magic powers.”

“You’re an absolute bloody madman, you know that, Hargreeves?” Hughes said

“Shut the fuck up for a second and listen to me!” Dave yelled, taking the three other men by surprise. “I can’t move my legs.”

The blue light faded, and Klaus dropped the rocks.

 

* * *

 

By the time they were dug out, Wood and Chads had been evacuated to the field hospital, and Meakin was lying on a stretcher moaning about having no morphia pills. It was the Ulsters who dug them out, a group of Irishmen who patted them on the back and told them “fuck off to the CCS, good luck to ya” and went back to cleaning their rifles and occupying the North Staffordshire stretch of trench. The stretcher bearers took them to a big tent, where a nun ordered Dave and Klaus to the Resuscitation tent, separating them from Harker and Hughes who had managed, somehow, to avoid serious injury.

The second collapse had broken a couple of ribs, Klaus was certain. Alongside the stinging in his leg from the scrape he got from jumping into the trench and the dull throb of pain from his infected arm, withdrawal symptoms were beginning to catch up with him, and he tried to tell the sister this, but she ignored his chattering and covered him with another blanket before ripping the sleeve off his dirty shirt and looking in quiet shock at the state of the infection in his arm.

“You’ve been here before, have you?” she asked.

“No,” Klaus answered, somewhat truthfully. He’d stolen liquid morphine from the operating tent, but he’d never been in the resuscitation tent before. She sat him up and removed the rest of his shirt, and looked at the other arm before withdrawing a needle and placing it on the tray beside his cot.

“I’ll be right back with the doctor,” she smiled, and left, wiping the dirt from his arm on her white apron. Klaus sat up and watched her leave. His side hurt.

“Dave?” he called.

“Shut up, Yank,” someone called back. Klaus craned his neck to get a look at who had spoken. Meakin lay supine on a cot, needles dug into both arms with bags of blood suspended on poles by his cot. A leather tourniquet was placed just above each knee where his legs now ended.

“Right,” Klaus said, quietly. The doctor came over to him, and asked,

“They tell me you think you have magic powers.”

“I see dead people,” Klaus whispered. There was something freeing in quoting movies that haven’t been made yet. Maybe he’d be credited with coining a famous phrase. He hoped he could do better than “I see dead people”. It was a bit too… real.

The doctor slid the needle up his vein with an ease that Klaus was envious of. He could never get it in his right arm that easily. Then again, he was also going one handed with his less dominant hand and either already high or desperately chasing one.

“We’re going to start with a blood transfusion, and then we will take you into surgery for your leg. And the arm.” the doctor stated. He sounded exhausted.

Klaus wiggled his leg experimentally. It stung, but he’d had worse.

“What’s wrong with my leg?” he asked.

“It’s still hemorrhaging. We might have to amputate.”

Klaus leaned over the side of the cot and vomited, while the wounded soldiers around him moaned and smoked cigarettes and died alone while the battle raged on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND SO CONCLUDES ACT 1
> 
> FIRST: A little bit of backstory and a picture of an army chaplain holding a dog: https://thevastydeep.home.blog/2019/06/10/the-battle-of-messines-1917/
> 
> SECOND: As always, thanks for reading and indulging me in my collision of wacky interests.
> 
> THIRD: If the slow burn is burnin' too slow feel free to yell at me on various social media until I feel brave enough to upload the smut I've written over at umbrellakink. 
> 
> AND FOURTH: I'm optimistic about my writing speed but there might be a brief hiatus if I don't finish this by the time I leave for Scotland in a couple weeks! Please encourage me with comments and love :)
> 
> Next time: Our assassins arrive undercover


	6. Interlude C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our assassins arrive undercover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my darlings! Sorry for the late update but I was busy doing all sorts of social things this weekend (I went on a date hell yeah!). This one is short but Part IV is an absolute beast that I may have to split up because it's 13 000 words... 
> 
> So anyways that means that this week or next week I get to bump up the rating and I'm pretty excited about it.

 

Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland

_July 18, 1917_

 

“This wasn’t what I pictured when The Historian said we’d be getting dirty,” Arjay said as he shoveled out a latrine. Hà Liên adjusted her nurse’s cap and peered around the edge of the outhouse, looking for the matron. Last time Matron had caught Hà Liên and Arjay meeting together she had been forced to scrub the vomit out of bed sheets. She wasn’t keen on doing it again.

“I can’t believe we have to stay undercover. We’re better than shoveling shit.”

“Well, yeah, but Charles is an undercover agent and he’s one of the most decorated agents in the commission! What a brave guy, blowing his own leg up just for the mission,” Arjay said, dreamily. Hà Liên was sick of hearing about Charles.

“Why can’t we stay in the town and pose as visiting doctors or something? We’d be able to complete the mission just as easy.” She wrinkled her nose as Arjay’s enthusiastic shoveling splashed some dirty water onto his orderly’s uniform. She pointed at the offending brown splotch.

“Shit,” he said, throwing down the shovel and backing away from the cess pit, trying not to retch.

“Ha, I knew it! I knew you were faking this ‘undercover work is fun’ shtick from the start!” She laughed at his misfortune.

“You should go before Matron catches you again. Meet in the kitchens tonight and discuss?”

“Yeah, alright. Clean yourself up first. You stink.”

Arjay picked up the shovel and threatened to poke her white apron with the poop-covered spade. She jogged until she was out of turd-flinging range, just in case he was serious.

 

* * *

 

The hospital used to be a hydropathic hospital in which a technique, known colloquially as the “water cure”, was practiced. It was more a spa retreat than a hospital back then, and as such, the kitchens, rather than being sterile and cold, were spacious and inviting. It was perhaps only due to the strict military code of “don’t bother the cook” that the men stayed away from the kitchens and the kitchen staff. It was more likely that the head cook, a small and eerie woman with pale eyes and dark skin would stare at them with such hostility that they retreated, ashamed and embarrassed, from their mission of finding an extra snack or sneaking a taste of tonight’s stew.

Mrs. Okereke, the cook in question, was actually a rather cheerful character. She was known to sing while she concocted the blandest of food for the patients, as if the low-pitched tremolo of her voice would suffice to season the food. She used the entire spice rations for the staff, and for that, she was officially the hero of Craiglockhart.

“The soldiers are all sick,” she said, accent bleeding through each word. “Half of them throw up my food anyways so they eat the dog food I give them.”

She had lived in Liverpool since the 1870s, she said, and answered a job posting that took her here, to Scotland. The accent was one of the few reminders of the place she was born, a place no one in the kitchens had heard of nor could pronounce.

Hà Liên liked her immediately.

She showed up early to the kitchens where Mrs. Okereke was lording over her kitchen staff as they finished cleaning for the night.

“Hungry, girl?” she asked, as Hà Liên entered.

“No thank you, Mrs. Okereke. Another secret midnight meeting.” Hà Liên had told Mrs. Okereke the truth of her secret meetings with Arjay after they were discovered, knives in hand, acting out a scenario in which their target was partaking in Doctor Brock’s art therapy sessions. She left out the details about being time travelling assassins on a mission to preserve the timeline; Mrs. Okereke was overwhelmed with joy already at hearing they were secret agents. “It’s nice to see a young girl from a far away country be successful here,” she had said, and Hà Liên appreciated it more than she knew how to show.

Extra food aside, it was nice to spend time with the only other non-white woman in the hospital. Arjay was lovely, of course, but he was American through and through, and didn’t understand. Hà Liên would come down to the kitchens during mealtimes, when Matron was occupied and the nurses given a brief reprieve while their patients ate, and would sit, enjoying a quiet cup of tea with the elderly cook. Mrs. Okereke always set aside a spoonful of sugar from the weekly ration for Hà Liên’s tea. Some days they would sit, silent, lost in private contemplations, and some days they would talk until their tea grew cold.

It was the first time since joining the Commission that Hà Liên allowed herself to talk about Vietnam.

Like most of the agents recruited by The Handler, Hà Liên was a survivor. She survived the attack on her town, survived bearing witness to the slaughter of her friends, and survived in the jungle for nearly a month before, in a burst of dazzling blue light, her saviour emerged, hair perfectly coiffed like the pinup of Marilyn Monroe she kept hidden under her pillow.

She was eighteen years old when she turned her back on her home and pledged to do the one thing she swore she never would.

She kept the details vague, aware enough of history to be sure that Vietnam didn’t officially exist yet, but told the other woman of her pain, of her betrayal. Her father and brothers were recruited into the army. She didn’t know which army; neither did they. When soldiers came, men left, houses burned, women screamed. The uniforms may have been different, but the outcome was the same.

The clock chimed ten, and Mrs. Okereke stood, removed her apron, and placed her hand gently on Hà Liên’s forehead. “Goodnight, girl,” she said, hanging up her apron and leaving for her quarters.

She still had two hours to kill until Arjay showed up and spent it wisely, head cradled in her arms as she fell asleep at the table.

 

* * *

 

 

“I didn’t think I was that late,” Arjay said as he took in the sight of Hà Liên’s dishevelled appearance as she rubbed at her eyes.

“Let’s just get down to business so I can go to bed.”

Arjay pulled a stack of papers from under his pagri and shuffled them around until one reading Admission Records was on top. “Here’s our target.” He pointed to a name near the top of the page.

“David Katz?” Hà Liên read. Arjay nodded.

“Illegally travelled from 1968, where he was supposed to die in Vietnam.” Hà Liên grimaced. She was all too familiar with people like him. “Instead, he ends up in 1917, somehow, joins the-“. He checked another of the papers- “North Staffordshire Regiment, 1st Division, gets injured, and ends up here, at Craiglockhart, where Charles has reported that his interference alters the timeline.”

“How so?”

“Erm, I’m not sure. No one’s been very forthcoming with that information.” It was then that they heard the telltale _thump_ of a directive from the Commission appear in the oven. Hà Liên opened it.

 

_Terminate David Katz. Avoid extractio_ _n due to present company._

 

Hà Liên blinked twice after reading it and handed it to Arjay. Arjay squatted down on the ground in his thinking position. Hà Liên collapsed into her chair, crossing her legs and waiting for Arjay to speak.

“Are they watching us?”

Hà Liên shrugged. “Good timing, most likely.” She waited for Arjay to laugh at the pun. He didn’t.

“What does present company mean?” Hà Liên shrugged again.

“Don’t get caught up in it. Let’s just kill the bastard and get paid.”

 

* * *

 

 

Killing the bastard and getting paid was a solid idea that had never failed them in the past. Fortunately for Dave Katz, their plans were quickly dashed when they realized there was _no way in hell_ that the sweet guy in a wheelchair could be their target. Arjay was left gaping like a fish when Dave shook his hand after meeting him, saying “I usually stand when I shake a man’s hand, but I guess that’s why I’m here” and treating him to a sunshine smile. Hà Liên held out a minute longer, holding onto the memory of the War, but he had thanked her profusely for bringing him pain medication and a glass of water, told her that she was the bravest woman he had ever met, and when she met his eyes, they were so sad, so full of regret that it was impossible to hold him responsible for any atrocities his army brothers will commit in the future.

They met again at midnight.

“There’s no way this guy is our target. There must be another David Katz.”

“Maybe he’s hiding his nefarious intentions?”

“Have you spoken to him? He’s like a Care Bear.”

“Shit.” Arjay sat on the floor of the kitchen in defeat. Hà Liên wrote a quick note to the Commission when their delay inevitably was called into question and stuck it in the pocket of her dress.

“Any ideas, big guy?”

“Observation?” Arjay flipped over so he was laying on his back with his arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. Hà Liên lay down so the tops of their heads were almost touching and mirrored his starfish position. “That weird guy he’s always with must be involved somehow. He was wearing eyeliner, Hà Liên. _Eyeliner.”_

“We could try to distract him with something?” she suggested. “Then we cover our asses if it turns out he really _is_ our target. We could say it was too high a risk to eliminate him so we had to resort to other methods.”

Arjay made a _hmm_ -ing sound. “Have any ideas? It would have to be something colossal enough to change the future...” He trailed off, noticing her smug silence. “You noticed something, didn’t you? Something we can use?”

Hà Liên smiled. As a matter of fact, she did.

“He’s in love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Part IV, in which there is psychotherapy, diagnostic boners, and poetry. Dave makes a confession, Klaus chats with some lost friends, and with great fear, we add the 20th Century RPF tag for the sake of saving the universe. 
> 
> (Do not be afraid! We're about to embark on a journey that will include a number of historic literary figures, some doctors, and a pair of poets who can't sort out their feelings for each other which is entirely historically accurate)


	7. Part IV-I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Craiglockhart War Hospital, Dave takes a chance, Klaus talks to a therapist, and conspicuous boners are used as a diagnostic tool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up splitting the chapter because the action is pretty much all concentrated in the hospital from hereon out. Updates will continue on Sundays and Wednesdays!
> 
> The Craiglockhart War Hospital was a shell shock hospital established just outside Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Rivers and Dr. Brock were actual physicians who practiced there. Their most famous patients, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were both real poets who join our ensemble cast. Sassoon and Owen met in August and their meeting essentially shook the whole literary community and is the subject of a play (Stephen MacDonald's Not About Heroes), a book trilogy (Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy plus a movie following the plot of the first book), and an incredible indie film called The Burying Party which I highly recommend (you can buy it on Vimeo for like 7 GBP and it's totally worth it) 
> 
> Essentially: the doctors are real, the place is real, and Siegfried and Wilfred were really there writing poetry and probably falling in love (see: You Have Fixed My Life: The Gay Love Letters of Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon, compiled by Rictor Norton)

_August 31, 1917_

 

The sun was coming up over the line of trees that separated the hospital grounds from the road to town. Klaus sat at Dave’s feet, leaning against his legs, hand shading his eyes against the morning sun. Dave was leaned forward, elbows propped up on his unmoving legs, with one hand resting gently on Klaus’s shoulder. Two mugs of watery coffee sat off to the side. A leaf was floating among the dregs of one, making lazy circles on the dark surface.

“I have an appointment with Doctor Rivers today,” Dave said, curling his fingers into Klaus’s pajama shirt. Klaus leaned back a little further into Dave to show he was listening. He continued, “Last time he told me they want to transfer me to London, but there’s no room at the hospital there. Apparently one of the doctors there can ‘cure’ me.” Klaus could hear the frown in Dave’s words. “As if I just have a flu. Like I’m not… broken.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust 1917 medicine?” Klaus said wryly. He waved his still-bandaged arm in the air. “Don’t forget, they cured me with maggots!”

Dave closed his eyes and shook his head. “It was so gross, Klaus. You have no idea how gross it was to watch. You were lucky you were out of your mind on pain meds.”

“Why didn’t you look away?”

Dave opened his mouth as if to respond, but only managed to say “uh” before turning red. He removed his hand from Klaus’s shoulder.

“I get it, Davey,” Klaus said, giving him The Cute Klaus look (wide eyes, trembling lip, soft voice). “You think I’m pretty.” Dave laughed in a way that probably sounded natural to anyone else. Klaus could hear the apprehension in it, and he could feel the spark of hope that ignited in his heart every time Dave touched him, or smiled at him, or gave him a look that lingered just a little bit too long.

It wasn’t enough for him to admit “I think I’m in love with you,” so instead Klaus said, “Let’s go inside. I think Hawthorne’s done puking into his oatmeal by now.”

 

* * *

 

They had been here a little over a month and Klaus was finally getting used to the routine. Wake up. Breakfast. Listen to Hawthorne get violently ill into his oatmeal again. Smile at Dave from across the table. Meet with doctors. Wave at Dave from across the lawn. Engage in Dr. Brock’s bizarre activities (today’s was laying bricks in town). Free time. Dinner. Bed.

It was all very much like prison, except the food was worse.

Klaus knew it was a mental hospital; he had spent at least one stint in an asylum back home and could recognize signs of crazy when he saw them, but this was the most chill mental hospital he’d ever seen. It was even stranger when he considered that it was also a military hospital. Compared to the hospital he and Dave were at before being sent here, it was practically an all-inclusive resort. Major Bryce, who ran Craiglockhart, had so much contempt for military structure that he himself rarely wore his uniform. Klaus had seen him on multiple occasions wearing nothing but a bathrobe around the upper floor, and took it as a sign that he too could shed his uniform and wear his hospital-provided striped swimsuit around (it was much breezier than the stiff wool uniform that always _always_ smelled like blood) and was made of a flattering material that made his ass look incredible. Dave generally kept to his striped blue pajamas, for both his convenience (he still refused to let anyone help him dress) and Klaus’s (who was mostly thankful but slightly disappointed that Dave remained fully covered).

When Klaus had asked the head doctor at the military hospital if he thought he was shell shocked, the doctor laughed in his face.

“Son, you claim to see the ghosts of your dead friends everywhere you go,” he said.

Klaus had shrugged and said, “it’s normal.”

The doctor had raised one bushy black eyebrow and menacingly signed the form, sealing his fate.

It wasn’t so terrible when he realized Dave was coming with him.

Dave had told him of a conversation he had overheard between two consulting physicians one night when Klaus was asleep. (The doctors were fast and loose with the pain meds, for which Klaus was thankful. For once, it was actually pain he was taking them for- his leg wound had healed well but the infection in his arm went deeper than he had thought. He thought he was hearing things when the doctor prescribed “maggots”. He was not. The itchiness and generally disgustingness of having thousands of medicinal maggots crawling through his open wound was enough to warrant a steady supply of dope that sedated him enough not to freak out. The following weeks of having a solid chunk of his arm chewed away and exposed were some of the most painful of his life. He would rather wax his entire body with chocolate pudding _twice_ than have to get a wound debrided again. He decided, then and there, to quit IV drugs forever. Little victories.) They were being sent to the same hospital, Klaus because he had obviously lost his mind and Dave because his paralysis was “functional”. He didn’t know what that meant, he had said bitterly, because he didn’t feel very functional.

In any case, they were together, and spending long evenings pushing Dave’s wheelchair along the paths surrounding the hospital, taking in the sights of an idyllic countryside untouched by war and sitting side by side in silence, Dave in his chair and Klaus on the grass at his feet, had made it all worth it.

 

_September 2, 1917_

 

There was a little embankment under the bridge where the grass grew long and soft. It was hidden from the road, out of sight of the hospital, and one sitting on it would only be in danger of being found out if the Model Yacht Club was out racing boats. If they were, it was also the perfect place to throw rocks into said boats, trying to sink them before they emerged from under the bridge and cause general chaos among the men. Klaus had lost all of his rocks an hour ago, when one dedicated member of the Club chased him around the Craiglockhart grounds for ten minutes before tackling him and forcing him to watch as Dave dumped the remains of their pile of rocks into the stream.

But now, the Model Yacht Club was gone, and he and Dave lay side by side in the shade under the bridge watching a ladybug crawl up a long blade of grass and flutter awkwardly onto Dave’s pajamas. The wheelchair sat beside them in the sun, neglected. They came down here often, in between meals and therapy and awkward conversations with Dave’s roommate, a nice officer named Siegfried who Klaus had bonded with over their shared accusations of being really bad German spies. They had slightly more awkward conversations with the young man who showed up at the same time as Klaus almost every day when he came to push Dave’s wheelchair out across the grounds to “connect with the environment.” The awkward man had a little moustache (like Patterson has, thought Klaus. Like Patterson _had,_ he would correct himself, and glance around for his ghost as if thinking his  name would summon him from wherever ghosts go when they aren’t bothering him) and a stutter, and blushed bright red every time Siegfried said anything remotely kind to him. Klaus and Dave would leave them to their stunted flirting, and they would laugh and take bets on how long it would take for the two to figure themselves out. Klaus was not unaware of the hypocrisy when he said Wilfred should just grow some balls and kiss Siegfried, because life isn’t fun without a little risk. He tried to use his advice on himself; telling himself to just go for it, because Dave was always touching him on the hand, or the leg, or the shoulder to get his attention, which he never really _had_ to do. He always had Klaus’s attention.

He was a coward, though, and he spent their time together sinking model yachts and pulling up grass.

Klaus followed the ladybug’s path with his finger, tracing it up the grass, across Dave’s leg, just because he could. Dave kept his eyes closed, hands behind his head, legs still. He looked relaxed.

“What are you doing?” Dave asked sleepily.

Klaus smiled fondly. “Nothing. Ladybug,” he pointed out, allowing the little red beetle to crawl onto his finger.

“I can feel you staring,” Dave said. He had opened his eyes, and was looking at the ladybug on Klaus’s finger crawl into his palm. Dave sat up, rearranging his legs. “Do you wanna do something else?”

“I can go get some more rocks,” Klaus suggested, but Dave shook his head.

“Not that.” The ladybug spread its wings and took off into the summer haze. They both watched it go. Dave lay back down, propped up on his elbows. He had moved a little bit closer, and the proximity meant that their shoulders brushed and his hand rested on Klaus’s arm. Klaus looked at it, wondering if this time it meant something. Dave didn’t move it.

“Hey,” Dave whispered, looking up at Klaus. “Stop me if...” he trailed off as he leaned in closer to Klaus, lowering his head until he was close enough to capture Klaus’s lips in a soft kiss. It was gentle, and innocent, and _hopeful_ , and everything Klaus had never thought he deserved. But Dave kissed him again, and again, and Klaus wrapped an arm around his shoulders and whispered, “Don’t stop,” into Dave’s mouth as he kissed him again, a little bit longer this time, but just as gentle and just as sweet as the first time. Klaus pulled Dave closer just to have him closer, and Dave reached up to brush his thumb across Klaus’s cheekbone and cradle the back of his neck.

Dave grimaced into the next kiss, and pulled away to stretch out his side.

“Sorry,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “Cramp.”

“It’s okay,” Klaus whispered. “It’s okay,” and he crawled into Dave’s lap and pushed him gently back into the grass, and lowered his body down on top of his. “Is this okay?” Klaus asked, and Dave nodded and pulled Klaus down to him.

They lay together for what felt like hours, experimenting with lips and hands and skin, but never heated, never needy, never anything _more._

“It’s been torture not knowing if I could touch you,” Klaus breathed into Dave’s ear as Dave pressed soft kisses down the open collar of his shirt. He pulled Dave’s face up to his and pressed their foreheads together.

“You can. Please-” Dave’s voice broke and his eyes glistened.

“Dave. Davey, what’s wrong?” Klaus asked.

Dave smiled at the ground and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s nothing. Just kiss me again,” and Klaus did, greedily this time, with hands running through Dave’s curly hair and his body pressing Dave’s into the cool grass. Dave let out a precious little, “oh,” when Klaus finally kissed him open-mouthed, and Dave melted, pliant, in his arms. Klaus kept his eyes open when he licked at the corner of Dave’s mouth, just to see his eyes flutter shut. He could practically taste Dave’s moan. What a gift he would be, laid out on a bed before him, just the two of them. Dave was honest about everything; Klaus had no doubt that he would be just as honest about his body. Every shudder and sigh and moan would be all Dave, and all for him.

Dave pushed at his chest. “We should stop,” he said. Quickly, he added, “I don’t want to, but…” He gestured around, reminding Klaus that they were only partially hidden under a bridge on hospital grounds.

“Right. We can just cudd-“ Klaus stopped short. He pointed at Dave’s pajama pants, tented with a conspicuous boner.

“Oh my Gosh,” said Dave.

“You got a boner!” said Klaus.

“Does that mean..?”

“You think I’m pretty!” Klaus swooned, hands clasped to his chest. Dave laughed and swatted him in the arm.

“It’s not my spine,” he said. “It’s not my spine.” His smile grew, until he laughed in relief. He clasped Klaus’s arms and pulled him into a hug.

A moment passed, and Klaus felt Dave stiffen in his arms.

“How am I going to tell Dr. Rivers about this?”

 

_September 3, 1917_

 

“Hey, Dave.”

Dave, startled, fumbled the book he was reading and it fell, open, to the ground. Klaus circled around Dave’s chair and knelt at his feet. He picked up the book.

“Your roommate wrote this?”

Dave nodded. “He’s pretty good.”

“Are you just saying that because he’s making you read it and you have to be civil?” Klaus looked dubiously at the book, flipping through the pages of poetry and making a face.

“First, it’s not Siegfried’s copy. It’s Wilfred’s. One of Wilfred’s. He has three copies. And second, if I remember correctly, you’ve quoted Rupert Brooke at me before so don’t claim that you hate poetry.”

Klaus tried to remember ever reading said poet, but he couldn’t. Ben must have quoted him at some point, and he just quoted Ben. He loved a good Ben-ism.

“Are you avoiding me?” Klaus changed the subject to get straight to the point.

Dave looked away and wrung his hands together.

“So…” Klaus moved so he was in Dave’s line of sight again, “that’s a yes?”

“I’m not avoiding you, I’m just…” Dave sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Are you embarrassed? Just tell me, Davey. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was ashamed of me.”

Dave looked alarmed and reached out for Klaus’s hand, but seemed to think better of it and returned his hands to his lap. Dave murmured something, but it was too quiet for Klaus to hear. He knelt down next to Dave’s wheelchair. When their eyes met, Dave was shocked to see Klaus’s eyes shiny with tears. His lower lip trembled, like he was concerned that Dave would reject him. Dave wanted to punch himself in the arm for putting that look on his friend’s face.

“I’m scared,” Dave said truthfully, a little bit louder this time.

“It’s okay to be scared, I think.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Regret what?”

Dave dropped his voice to a whisper when he answered. “Kissing me.”

“No!” Klaus answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, Dave figured later, it was.

“I thought you’d realize that I’m…” Dave gestured to his legs, “not normal.”

“Babe, have you seen me? Normal’s the last thing I’d want you to be.”

Dave laughed lightly, and reached again for Klaus’s hand. This time he didn’t shy away and grasped his friend’s hand like a lifeline.

“But I can’t- I’m not-“

“Dave, you’re perfect.”

“But-“

Klaus squeezed his hand and slapped the other one over Dave’s mouth. “I’d choose Wheelchair Dave a million times before I’d even consider anyone else. You’re not broken, or ruined, or anything else that bullshit little voice in your head is saying, alright?”

Dave nodded. “What if they can’t fix my legs?”

“Then we go to the future and get you robot legs,” Klaus stated factually, like it was the next logical progression after being transferred to the other hospital.

Dave let Klaus climb sideways into his lap, dangling his legs over the arms of the wheelchair. He wrapped his arms around Dave’s neck like he was being carried bridal style. Dave felt his heartbeat speed up when he made the connection.

“What do they call it in the ‘60s?” Klaus said suddenly. “Going steady?”

“Um,” was all Dave could think of to say.

“Yeah, that’s what they called it in _Grease_ so it must be true. Dave Katz, I don’t have a ring to give you but I do have a heart that gets palpitations every so often when I drink a lot of coffee or do a lot of cocaine, but I don’t do cocaine anymore because it makes the…” Klaus gestured around at the empty air, “get crazy but otherwise, it works alright and I’d like you to have it. Figuratively.”

“Are you asking me to be your… sweetheart?” Dave only understood half of what Klaus had just rattled off, but he was pretty sure he was onto something.

“Yes!” came Klaus’s enthusiastic declaration, and Dave felt his chest hurt. Maybe he was getting palpitations too.

He nodded, and couldn’t stop himself from breaking into a grin while Klaus looked at him with a sparkle in his eye and a grin to match.

The relief was almost too much to bear. They sat, foreheads together, grinning stupidly at each other until Dave remembered that yes, he was allowed to kiss Klaus and he should probably do so immediately. When their lips met, Dave was shocked with how natural it felt. He was acutely aware that he had never felt so at home with another person, and feeling the roughness of facial hair scrub against his cheek as he pushed his lips closer, harder, felt so _right._

 

_September 7, 1917_

 

Doctor Brock had spent the last hour forcing him to talk about his dead friends, and Klaus was getting agitated. About a half hour in, Klaus thought he heard a familiar laugh behind him and whipped around, startled to find Renwick leaning against a bookshelf.

“Oi, watch this,” he said, and fell sideways through the bookshelf.

Klaus watched, void of amusement. Brock cleared his throat and gave him a searching look.

“One of my dead friends is behind me.”

“What is he doing?”

“Acting like an idiot.” (“I resent that!” Renwick said, passing through the bookcase again and trying to emerge in a spooky manner.)

“Are you frightened of him?”

“Of Renwick? Hah, no.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t try to hurt me.”

Brock pondered for a moment, making a note on his clipboard. “Perhaps if you tried to engage with these ghosts and speak with them, they may not affect you so strongly.”

“Tried that, doc. Vengeful spirits love me. They scream and they claw and never ever shut up.” Klaus opened his eyes. He didn’t realize that he had shut them. It was strange to have someone listen to him and believe him. Sure, Doctor Brock thought they were an element of psychosis, but he never once doubted the fact that Klaus saw ghosts, imaginary or not. He was teaching him how to cope with his powers more than his dear old dad ever did. 

They continued on, Klaus telling the truth and Brock suggesting solutions that made Klaus apprehensive but that he was willing to try. When he was finally dismissed, his appointment had run twenty minutes overtime and he was late to meet Dave in the library. Upon leaving, he ran headlong into Wilfred, fist raised and about to knock on the door.

 “Oh, hello Owen.”

“Hello, Hargreeves.”

“Mr. Owen is giving a lecture at the Field Club this afternoon.” Brock called from inside his office. “I’m sure he will be delighted to see you there, Mr. Hargreeves.”

“I think I’m busy, sir,” Klaus said.

“It wasn’t a request. You attend the Field Club or else you join Hislop and Sadler on the tennis courts.”

Through gritted teeth, Klaus mumbled, “yes, sir,” and left to go find Dave.

 

* * *

 

The storm had rolled in overnight, and by mid morning rain had began to pour down on Edinburgh. The darkness of the storm clouds was impermeable. The hospital was smothered in darkness while the sound of the rain drowned out the bustle of daily activity.

Outside activities were cancelled and the halls were full of men searching for something to do. The library was crowded, the dining hall was being defended by a couple of outnumbered orderlies, and the entrance hall was haunted by whom Klaus deemed “The Sport Boys”: a quartet of men who, despite their machismo, had in total the sex appeal of a moth. They headed every sports club at Craiglockhart. Among them were the legendary Hislop and Sadler, two brusiers who Dave swore were “very nice, really” and would be teaching him tennis if he didn’t adopt a new hobby to appease Doctor Brock.

Klaus tended to ignore most people at the hospital; Dave seemed to seek them out, to know them by name, to listen to their stories and hear their problems and offer them a smile.

He approached tentatively, intruding into their Sport Boy misery. “You guys seen Private Katz?” They turned to look at who was asking, but on seeing it was only Klaus, the biggest of the Sport Boys turned back around and said simply said no.

Best not to dwell on it, Klaus thought, and continued on his way.

He checked the library again, Dave’s room, all the various sitting rooms, and, not finding Dave in any of those, finally made the forbidden journey to the back of the hospital towards the kitchens. It was the only place he had left to check.  

Outside, the rain continued to fall.

 

* * *

 

The first rumble of thunder was far enough away that it went almost unnoticed, except by the Sport Boys, waiting with untamed optimist for the rain to stop.

“Oh no,” Hislop said.

“Fuck it,” Kershaw muttered. “I can’t stay here for another storm.” He barrelled past the others, pushing open the front door with his considerable bulk and running into the open field.

Sadler turned and ran in the opposite direction, running for the safety of his room before the next crack of thunder arrived. Brook and Hislop froze, rooted to the spot in the entrance hall.

The next rumble of thunder began, growing louder and louder. It growled deep and low for long enough that as it trailed off, the shouts and cries of soldiers filled the silence.

Upstairs, a soldier awoke from his nap, diving under his bed and cowering in fear at the sound of the shells that would not fall.

Down the hall, Hà Liên closed her eyes to the chaos around her. It had been twenty years since she had heard grown men scream like this. She was helpless then. She wasn’t now. She opened her eyes and caught Lt. Owen as he ran straight into her. She pulled the little man into an embrace and walked with him to the edge of the staircase.

“I-I-I c-can’t,” he stuttered. “D-don’t w-w-want to g-get b-buried again.” She nodded, eyes unfocused and only seeing burning wood and crushed bodies.

“We’ll sit in the library, how is that? There are lots of windows there, so many ways to get out,” she said. She didn’t know much about this man, but she always saw him with a book or a pencil and paper in his hand. He probably liked the library. Owen nodded, and they descended the stairs.

She nearly ran straight into Klaus, who was dodging around men, some panicking and some not, still looking for Dave. He bumped into Owen instead, knocking his hat off. Klaus picked it up and returned it, but Owen’s eyes were glazed over and his favourite nurse accepted it for him. “Go someplace comfortable, soldier. Call if you need someone,” she said. It was the most professional Klaus had ever seen her act, and he watched in slight awe as she escorted Wilfred into the library and sat down next to him, stroking his hair in a maternal gesture.

Then, something clicked. Dave had psychotherapy with Rivers on the second floor. Rivers’s office had windows that faced west. Dave would have seen the storm come in and gone somewhere comfortable because the orderlies were understaffed today (like they always were). He took the stairs two at a time and ran down the hallway to his room. His roommate had a pass and was spending the day in town with his wife- Klaus had made a loud bawdy joke about it over breakfast, but he knew Dave would remember. He pushed open the door to his room.

If he had noticed anything else, he would have seen Dave’s overturned wheelchair on its side, the pile of books scattered across the floor, or his army green t-shirt (artfully cut into a crop top) clutched between Dave’s hands like a rosary. But he could only see Dave.

Dave, with his eyes wide and terrified.

Dave, leaning on the bedframe with his legs splayed out, half under the bed like he was trying to hide himself.

Dave, who upon seeing him, let out a long shuddering breath and whispered, “Klaus,” and held out his arms.

He cut his ankle on one of the axles on the wheelchair when he crossed the room. He wouldn’t notice until hours later. Klaus squatted down next to Dave and hugged him tight. “You’re safe, Davey. We’re safe here. It’s just a storm. Just a storm.”

The next clap of thunder made them both jump.

“I couldn’t find you. I thought you were gone,” Dave said. It was muffled into Klaus’s shoulder. He could feel the vibrations of it in his blood, flooding through his body.

“I was looking for you. I even asked the Sport Boys.”

“You must have been really desperate.”

“I was.” They stayed curled up against the metal bed frame for another minute before Dave shifted and grimaced.

“Can you help me up?” he said, sitting up straight. He shrank back down when the next clap of thunder rang out, and Klaus waited, and counted, like Mom had taught him back when he was a kid who didn’t know that there were scarier things in the world than stormy weather. _One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…_ He held Dave tight when the next rumble started, kissing his cheek and staying close enough that Dave could feel his breath on his cheek.

“I’m getting up, okay?”

Dave nodded.

“Bed or chair?”

“Chair, please.”

“Bullshit. We’re getting into bed and we’re gonna snuggle for the rest of this goddamn storm.”

Dave laughed and leaned forwards, letting Klaus get behind him and lift him with surprising strength. He was able to drag himself backwards on the bed, letting go of Klaus’s shirt and tossing it to the end of the bed.

“What were you doing with my old shirt?”

“Uh,” Dave leaned back when Klaus lifted his legs and swung them onto the bed. Klaus didn’t wait for an answer before he crawled in next to Dave, pulling the scratchy hospital blankets over both of them. “It smells like you,” Dave said softly. “I needed-“ He paused and looked over at Klaus, who leaned up and kissed him- a short, sweet peck on the lips, before curling into Dave’s side.

“We’re gonna make it, Davey,” Klaus mumbled into Dave’s chest.

“Yeah,” he replied, but it was lost in a crack of thunder. He wrapped an arm around Klaus instead, hoping it would be enough.

 

_September 23, 1917_

 

The ghosts mostly stayed away from the hospital. It was nice. Klaus felt normal. He was making a solid attempt at cutting back on stolen morphine tablets and found the world a much more vivid, colourful place without the constant haze of sedatives hanging over his brain. Dave had even said that he was proud of him, and Klaus nearly cried.

Encouraged by the generous praise of his incredibly handsome boyfriend, Klaus woke up one morning and decided that he would take no pills for the entire day. Waking up went alright. He felt a little bit sick and his body ached, but he’d felt worse. He drank orange juice and ate toast, but his stomach turned when Hawthorne, like clockwork, began vomiting into his oatmeal again (“Why doesn’t he eat something else?” Siegfried said, rolling his eyes. Owen was more sympathetic, reminding him that Hawthorne had got a faceful of rotten intestines when one of his buddies prodded a bloated corpse with a stick and it had exploded) and he had to leave the room. Then the sweating started, and then the agitation, and then the stomach cramps.

Then they started to arrive.

The first to arrive was Renwick, who sat on his roommate’s bed and sang dirty trench songs.

“Shut up!” Klaus yelled finally. An orderly popped his head in the door and asked if everything was alright.

“It would be,” Klaus said through gritted teeth, “if this idiot would stop singing.” The orderly glanced at the otherwise empty room.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

Renwick’s singing finally faltered when another presence entered the room with a loud, “Shazam!”

Patterson was there, minus a part of his head. It must have been crushed when the trench caved in. Renwick had somehow materialized with a helmet on this time, covering the open cavity in the back of his head. He slapped Patterson on the back, and Patterson smiled for the first time Klaus had ever seen.

“How is our resident wizard faring on the other side?” Klaus asked. He was too sick to be sensitive about death.

“Me legs don’t hurt anymore and I don’t have to worry about dying.” Patterson shrugged. “It ain’t bad. And I can do real magic now. Watch!” Patterson disappeared, then reappeared on the other side of the room. He stood, clearly waiting for applause.

“You didn’t say the magic words,” Klaus said.

“ _Hominum Revelio,”_ Patterson said, sourly. “Better?”

Klaus nodded, clapping slowly. “Man, you would love the 2000s. Harry Potter would give you life.”

Patterson and Renwick exchanged a glance. “This… Harry Potter,” Renwick said. “He can bring us back?”

Klaus clapped a hand over his mouth. “Bad phrasing, guys. I just meant that you’d like it.”

Patterson didn’t look convinced. “The two thousands…” he said. “Can ghosts time travel?”

Klaus shrugged. “No idea. Though I’m pretty sure I was haunted by a caveman once. All these weird grunting sounds coming through the walls. Or else it was Luther discovering the magic of masturbation and I can’t accept that.”

Patterson nodded thoughtfully. “Harry Potter…”

Just then, another ghost popped up between him and Renwick.

“Aww, no! Not you too!” Renwick cried, pulling Wood into a headlock.

“Yeah, bit it at Pilckem Ridge,” Wood said. “Along with everyone else.”

Klaus fidgeted when Patterson asked what Wood meant.

“Well, not _everyone._ But shit, it was bad. Our lives aren’t worth nothing.”

“What happened to the other guys?” Klaus asked, finally.

“Chads and Meakin are home, minus a couple limbs each,” Wood said. “Baby-Face and Harker made it out, I think. I don’t know what happened to Katz.”

“Ooh, you don’t know!” Renwick squealed. “Katz is here and Hargreeves is totally in love with him!”

“Right, that’s enough,” Klaus said. He didn’t need ghosts interfering in his love life. He figured it was time to change the subject. “What happened to O Captain, our captain?”

“E’s still kickin’. They want him to lead the assault on Armentieres, I heard.”

Renwick’s face lit up and he began to sing again, this time with Patterson and Wood in chorus. “Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous!”

Klaus stuck his head back under the pillow, defeated.

The next few hours of ghosts passing through his room, slowly becoming more and more angry and violent, made him wish he had asked his dead friends to stay.

 

* * *

 

“You look awful,” Hà Liên said, crossing the room and throwing a handful of pills on Klaus’s bed.

“Nnnnnnnn,” he said, smashing his face deeper into the pillow.

“Take the damn pills,” she said.

“M trffw pkt,” Klaus said. Hà Liên pursed her lips and grabbed Klaus by the back of the hair, lifting his face from the pillow.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I’m trying to quit,” he said.

“You’re going to kill yourself trying. Take the damn pills. You have a job to do.”

 

_October 10, 1917_

 

“You should really give it a try, Mr. Hargreeves,” the doctor said, arranging his papers for the tenth time since Klaus had sat down in front of him. “It _will_ help you heal.”

Klaus sighed and kicked back his chair onto two legs, propping one foot up against Dr. Brock’s desk. Brock grimaced but didn’t say anything.

“You see, doc, I just don’t think that drawing plants is going to make me stop seeing ghosts.”

“It’s ergotherapy, Mr. Hargreeves. The cure through _functioning._ You must try to function within your environment.”

“Functional has never been a part of my vocabulary.”

“Working, then. I believe you know Mr. Owen? Yes, I suppose you must. Try writing something for _The Hydra_.”

“I don’t really _work_ either.” Brock sighed and closed his notebook.

“Let’s try something different, yes? What do you plan on doing after the war?”

Klaus was tempted to tell him the truth: he had no idea, but it probably involved either homelessness or prison. Instead, he felt his frustration rise and he found himself slamming the chair back down on four legs and leaning in towards Doctor Brock. “I never wanted to be in this war in the first place,” he said as Brock nodded. He felt a strange wave of honesty come over him, and he continued.

“But somehow, it’s ended up being the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I made friends, for the first time in my life, and they’re all dead except one, and I care about him more than anything in the world. It’s messed up, that I want to stay. It’s so fucking messed up, but if I had a choice, I don’t think I’d ever go home or leave this stupid war, especially not without him.”

Doctor Brock smiled. “Continue.”

“I’m finished.”

“No, you’re not. There’s something else you want to say. I should remind you that everything said in my office is completely confidential-”

“I’m in love with him.”

It came out suddenly, without thinking. Brock didn’t look surprised .

“Does he know?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Have you told him?”

“No.”

“Then he doesn’t know.”

Klaus bit his lip and leaning back in his chair. “How did you know?”

“It’s quite obvious. You change when you talk about Mr. Katz. Also I overheard one of the nurses- the tall one from Indochina- talk to the orderly- the one with the turban- about it, and they attempted to bribe me to keep it a secret. I didn’t accept the bribe, of course, but I will keep your secret.”

“Oh,” was all Klaus said. He thought about all the time he and Dave had been spending together. It was really a surprise that the entire world didn’t know by now.

“I did, however, accept the bribe of free kitchen access to ensure that you and Mr. Katz have a fulfilling and therapeutic relationship while you are under my care.”

Klaus crossed his legs, letting his striped one-piece swimsuit ride up one thigh. Brock averted his eyes before sighing, again. He did that a lot in his meetings with Klaus.

“Let me get this straight, doc. You accepted free food in exchange for making sure I get to touch my boyfriend’s willie?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT: Someone summons a ghost, Klaus gets a new responsibility, and Dave brushes his teeth at least four times.


	8. Part IV-2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part IV-2: Klaus believes in the power of sexy scientific experimentation, Dave gets a lecture on why he shouldn't get funky with his boyfriend while his roommate's asleep, and the assassins try plan B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RATED E FOR EXPERIMENTAL BLOWJOBS AND ACCIDENTAL VOYEURISM

_October 26, 1917_

 

“My roommate is going to be gone all day,” Dave said over breakfast.

“All day?” Klaus doubted this; usually Siegfried played about 50 rounds of golf and then showed up disheveled with Wilfred trotting behind like a loyal terrier. Renwick, who had taken to haunting Klaus day in and day out (“I’m bleedin’ bored, mate. Believe me, if I could be doin’ more interesting things, I’d be out doing them. You’re not that interesting, aside from the fairy bits and frankly, I’m just not fucking interested in where you put yer sausage”) would stand behind him and make dirty jokes. Renwick also, despite his claim to not care about “fairy bits”, once spied on Siegfried and Wilfred one afternoon and reported back that “all they talk about is fucking poetry”.

Dave must have truly believed it this time, because he nodded and said, “One of the nurses got him and Wilfred reservations at the Conservative Club tonight. Then he’s taking Wilfred to the astronomy tower.”

Klaus held back a smile as Renwick yelled “sodomy!” in his ear. His resolve broke when Dave smiled, a small and shy smile that Klaus had never seen before. He took it to mean “sneak into my room tonight and I’ll be waiting”.

When the orderly with the turban showed up to take Dave to his psychotherapy session, Klaus turned to Renwick, threw a fork through him and said, “Go haunt somewhere else tonight.”

 

* * *

 

It was still afternoon when Klaus finished herding chickens into their shoddily-made coops. Dr. Brock had this genius idea that being pecked to death by malnourished chickens would cure him of his nightmares. Instead, his typical mausoleum-full-of-ghosts dream turned into a mausoleum-full-of-ghosts-AND-chickens dream, which was far worse. The chickens didn’t go away with the morphine. He figured it was penance for eating Pecker back before Messines.

It was also a much worse day in terms of chicken herding because Klaus was making an active effort not to smell like poultry by the end of the day. One does not roll up to a date smelling like farm animals. Still, there wasn’t much he could do considering the lack of running water and the shitty baths he was subjected to. Klaus stopped in front of the nurse’s office. He could at least get some band-aids to cover up the abuse he took from Dr. Brock’s stupid chickens.

“Hey,” he said, wiggling his fingers and showing the nurse on duty (Hà Liên, his favourite!) his pecked-up fingers. “I’m having a medical emergency.”

She didn’t look up from her book. “Get a fucking band-aid,” she said. This was why she was Klaus’s favourite nurse. She didn’t give a fuck.

Klaus waltzed into the office and opened up all the cupboards. He found some gauze and took his best guess at which bottles were cleaning solution and which were disinfectants. He missed Polysporin.

The nurse continued reading. Klaus turned slowly towards the locked cabinet in the corner. In it: peace. He could finally get some quiet time. Alone. With Dave. Possibly sans trousers. He took another glance at the nurse.

“You want the key?” she said.

Klaus figured there was no sense in lying. “Yes.”

“Here.” She pulled a ring of keys out of her apron and tossed them at him. He missed and they hit him in the chest.

Klaus shrugged, opened the cabinet and grabbed a couple bottles of morphine.

“You’re really bad at your job, you know,” he told the nurse.

She shrugged. “Not my real job.”

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t high. Years of practice had allowed Klaus the knowledge of the chemistry behind moderation; he had just chosen to ignore it. Tonight though, he wanted to remember everything. He had a plan.

He wasn’t high, but he practically floated down the hall to Dave’s room. There were a few steps (punctuated with a twirl and a skip) that Klaus was sure his bare feet didn’t touch the cold floor, but no matter. He had a man to seduce.

When he reached Dave’s door, he didn’t hesitate. Klaus threw the door open and leaned against the door frame, posed like a 1920s starlet. He draped the hand with the ‘hello’ tattoo against his forehead and echoed the sentiment.

“Hello, darling,” he said, hoping he sounded more like a Bond girl and less like an old queen. Dave laughed, and Klaus found he didn’t really care if he was living up to the sex appeal of Pussy Galore. A shame, really, because he had always wanted his stripper name to be Dick Galore but he lacked the dexterity for pole dancing. Not that he hadn’t given it a decent try. It had ended in disaster involving a twenty dollar bill, a plaster cast, and a drug smuggling ring. And a visit to the emergency room. And a stint in prison. And one in rehab.

“Come here,” Dave smiled, beckoning from the bed. He was in a fresh pair of hospital pajamas, and Klaus thought he had never looked more beautiful. Dave opened his arms and Klaus fell into them like he belonged there. The physical closeness was enough for the moment- they wrapped their arms around each other and Klaus found that his head fit perfectly on Dave’s shoulder. But days spent together unable to touch, unable to act on the desires they felt eventually caught up with them, and both of them felt the other searching for skin more urgently. It culminated in a kiss, tentative at first like they had forgotten that afternoon under the bridge, but it grew bolder as teeth and tongues collided until Klaus pulled back.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Do you trust me?”

Dave responded immediately. “Yes.”

“Lay back.”

Dave did so, lowering himself onto his elbows and watching Klaus curiously. Klaus climbed on top of Dave and kissed him again, long and deep and reassuring. The next kiss was pressed to the corner of his mouth, the next and the next and the next peppered down his jaw. Once Klaus reached Dave’s neck, he began to unbutton his shirt, stopping to nuzzle at his neck and whisper “is this good?” before continuing down, kissing and licking at the exposed skin of Dave’s chest.

Dave nodded, and fell back onto the pillows as he ran both hands through Klaus’s hair.

Klaus paused at the bottom of his ribs. “For the sake of this medical experiment, I will need a full and ongoing report from you.”

“For science, huh?”

“Yeah,” Klaus said, ducking his head again and scraping his teeth lightly against one of Dave’s nipples. “For science.”

Dave moaned then, the sensation running through him and pooling hot and heavy in his groin.

“Yeah, baby. Just like that.”

Klaus crawled back up Dave’s body and kissed him, wetter and dirtier than he ever had before and Dave let his hands rove over Klaus’s still-clothed back and down to his waistband. He dipped his fingers just under it and Klaus hummed into his mouth.

“Do you want to touch me?” Klaus whispered, withdrawing his tongue and murmuring into the corner of Dave’s mouth.

“Yes,” Dave said. “Please,” he added, when Klaus slipped a hand down between them and cupped Dave’s erection through the fabric of his pajamas.

Klaus pulled away until he was kneeling, straddling Dave’s thighs. “While I appreciate the enthusiasm,” he said, “it’s not part of today’s experiment.”

“What do you mean?”

He began tugging Dave’s pants off, working them down over his legs and tossed them over his shoulder.

“Tonight’s scientific method involves you, on your back with your hands in my hair, preferably moaning _a lot_ and telling me exactly how it feels when I swallow your cock.”

Dave felt a rush of blood to his groin and, speechless, he nodded.

“Good. Now relax, baby, and tell me if it’s good.”

With this, Klaus ducked his head and licked a stripe up the underside of Dave’s erection, stopping at the tip the swirl his tongue around like it was the world’s most delicious ice cream cone. The look on Klaus’s face made him believe it. Dave was still speechless. The hot wet slide of Klaus’s tongue against his chilled skin was intoxicating.

“You need to talk to me, Davey.”

“It’s- it’s so good, baby. So hot.”

“What’s hot? Me?”

“Your mouth. It feels so good.”

Klaus seemed satisfied, and returned to licking at Dave’s cock. He bent his neck to take Dave’s balls in his mouth and looked up, meeting Dave’s eyes.

“Oh-“ was all Dave could think to say. Klaus stilled where he was, breath hot on the base of Dave’s cock. He cocked an eyebrow.

Dave scrunched up his eyes in apology. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, and Klaus moved again, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Dave’s inner thighs, which had begun to tremble. Klaus propped Dave’s legs up, bent at the knee, so he could lay between them and take the head of Dave’s cock into his mouth.

Dave felt like he was melting.

He moaned, higher and needier than he knew he could, and wrapped his hands in Klaus’s hair.

“You’re so good to me, Klaus. It feels so good and watching you is so fucking good. I want to be yours forever, please, just _don’t stop._ ”

Klaus took him deeper and hummed, and the vibrations went straight through his cock. His blood felt hot. Dave pet Klaus’s hair, letting him know how beautiful he was, not just on his knees between Dave’s legs but _here_ , with him, displaced in time but _together_ and for some reason, despite the terrible situation, Dave felt happier than he ever had in his life. Dave felt his eyes well up with tears and he tried to shake them away. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want the tears to obscure his view of Klaus, who was looking up at him through watery eyes and smudged eyeliner, who was fucking swallowing around him and Dave felt his cock and his heart leap at the same time and he cried out, tightening his grip on Klaus’s curls as he came into Klaus’s mouth as he pulled back and let it spurt onto his wicked, hot tongue.

“Mmm,” he hummed, wiping his mouth with the back of the “goodbye” hand. Dave’s cock twitched.

“I would say that was a success,” Klaus whispered, crawling back up Dave’s body and collapsing off to the side.

Dave was still gasping for air, overwhelmed, so when Klaus snuggled into his side and kissed him lightly on the cheek, Dave felt the tears begin to fall and he sat up, unsure why getting a blowjob made him cry but ashamed nonetheless.

And Klaus, bless him, sat up and threw both arms around Dave, stroking the back of his neck and just holding him until the sobs receded.

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re safe. What’s going on?” Klaus asked gently while Dave clung to him.

“Just overwhelmed, I think.”

Dave expected a joke in return. Perhaps a _I’m just that good,_ or _I’ll show you overwhelming,_ but Klaus just held him at arm’s length and looked so concerned when he asked “what can I do?”

And the floodgates of Dave’s heart burst with love, pouring forth from his eyes in another waterfall of tears.

“I love you,” he said. There was no stopping it now that he had thought it. He really, truly loved the man beside him in a way that he had never once thought possible. He had gone to Vietnam to die, an unlovable deviant, but somehow he ended up here, 50 years earlier and so in love that he felt like his heart might beat out of his chest.

“Is that all?” Klaus looked relieved. “I thought you might have realized that you’re straight or something.”

Dave laughed. He felt lighter with his confession off his chest.

“Definitely not, Hargreeves,” he said. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

Klaus reached up to cup his cheek. Dave turned his head and kissed Klaus’s skinny wrist.

“I don’t ever want to get rid of you.” Klaus leaned in, and Dave met him for a soft kiss. “I fell in love with you a long time ago.”

“You did?”

“It would be hard not to. You’re brave. You’re kind. You’re honest. And _God_ you’re beautiful. Everything about you is beautiful.”

“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”

“The world can only handle one of me.”

“And somehow, I found you.”

“In some corner of a foreign field.”

“It doesn’t seem so bad, now. To be stuck here.”

Klaus lay back down, and Dave followed. He extended an arm, letting Klaus fit the angles of his body close against Dave’s. They both knew he couldn’t stay, but Klaus puffed a breathy “I love you, too” into Dave’s neck and Dave could only close his eyes and pull him closer.

 

* * *

 

The clatter from Siegfried’s golf clubs unceremoniously falling to the floor woke Klaus with a start.

“Oh, you’re in for it now,” Renwick said, sitting cross legged on Siegfried’s bed.

“Jesus! How long have you been there?” Klaus said, reflexively pulling the sheets up around his chest, realizing that he was still clothed, and tucking them back in around Dave, who was definitely still naked.

“I just walked in,” Siegfried said. He bent to pick up his beloved golf clubs.

“Never really left, mate. I was watching the whole time. That was some queer activity, let me tell you.” Renwick waggled his ears, something that Klaus had never seen him do while he was alive. Maybe the afterlife unlocked secret talents. If it did, Klaus hoped he got something better than wiggling appendages.

“I _am_ queer,” Klaus said. Dave was awake by now and clearly horrified.

“I gathered,” Siegfried said. He picked up Dave’s pajama pants and handed them delicately to him.

“I need to brush my teeth,” said Dave.

“Gross,” Renwick said.

Klaus pointed a finger at him. “Aha! You didn’t watch! Or else you’d know that I was the one blowing Dave!”

Renwick threw his hands up in surrender and faded with a smile.

Siegfried crossed himself and sat where Renwick was a moment before. Dave’s face was flushed bright red when emerged from under the covers, pants on.

“Do you mind?” he asked quietly, gesturing to his wheelchair.

“’Of course, my truest love,” Klaus said, hopping out of bed and helping Dave swing his legs around off the side of the bed. It wasn’t quite an art, but they had done this enough times that the transition wasn’t disastrous.

“Need a push?”

“No, I just need to-“ Dave pointed to the door with his toothbrush. “Go.”

“I’ll miss you!” Klaus whisper-shouted after him as he propelled himself to the bathroom down the hall. He turned his attention back to Dave’s stuffy roommate, expecting something other than the wistful look on Siegfried’s face.

“You really love him?” he asked.

A ghost materialized in front of the wardrobe then, a thin trail of blood trickling down from a small bullet hole through his head. The ghost didn’t seem to notice Klaus, instead gazing longingly at the other man but not approaching.

Klaus had suspected before, but he knew from the way this conversation was going that Siegfried wouldn’t report them to Major Bryce.

“He’s the only person I’ve ever loved more than myself,” Klaus said, honestly. Siegfried nodded. “You had someone too, before.” It wasn’t a question.

Siegfried nodded again. Dave rolled back into the room with a cup of water held between his thighs. He stopped just far enough in the room to close the door and looked from Siegfried to Klaus nervously.

Klaus addressed the ghost when he said, “His name was…”

“David,” the ghost whispered.

“Oh,” he said, turning back to Siegfried. “We both have Daves.”

“Had.”

“He’s here, you know.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Siegfried said. “How can you know-,” his voice broke and he turned away. “Go back to your room, Hargreeves.”

“Don’t go yet,” Dave said quietly.

“Don’t go,” the ghost said, desperately. He and Dave started talking at the same time, and Klaus held both hands up in front of him, like he always had in the mausoleum in a desperate effort to protect himself.

“You first,” he said to the ghost. “Sorry baby, give me a second.” Dave looked bewildered, but nodded tentatively.

“Just… just tell him that I’m sorry for leaving him. And that I still love him. And that he should… he’s mourned long enough.”

Klaus repeated the message out loud.

“Get out, Hargreeves.”

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait! I think I can do it. Let me just…” Klaus scrunched up his face like he was constipated (he was; it was all the morphine) and dug his thumbs into his temples.

 “David, come over here.”  

“Me?” Dave said, who was already over there.

“No, him,” Klaus said, nodding his chin at David’s ghost.

“Holy mackerel,” said Dave. David was flickering in the corner of the room like the shitty hologram CGI in the Star Wars prequels. By the time Klaus opened his eyes, he was gone.

“Did I do it?”

“It!? You knew you could do this?”

“What did you do?” Siegfried asked, mesmerized by the now-empty corner of the room.

“Well,” Klaus explained, planning to start from the beginning. “First, I scrunched up my face like I had to shit, then I thought about the first Star Wars- well, not the _first_ Star Wars but the first chronologically which was actually the fourth- depending on who you ask because not everyone even acknowledges their existence, but-“

“That was him.”

“Who?”

“David.”

“Yeah, man. I told you he was here.”

“He’s dead.”

“Obviously, or he wouldn’t be a ghost.”

“He’s a ghost?”

“How else would I summon a dead guy?”

“You summoned him?”

“Well, he just sort of appeared when we were talking about our feelings, but-“

“You see dead people?”

“Oh, come on! I was hoping we could avoid the Sixth Sense bullshit this time!”                

Dave looked thoughtful for a moment. “Are they always here?”

“Well,” Klaus thought about it. They certainly seemed like it, and he hadn’t been sober since he was a teenager. Oh God, what if he got clean and had to wade through crowds of ghosts for the rest of his life? It would be like his own personal ghost rave, but without the drugs. What a terrible thought.

“Certain… substances make them go away,” Klaus said. “They don’t bother me when I’m all fucked up.”

Dave reached out and held his hand. “I had no idea,” he said sympathetically, stroking the back of Klaus’s hand. It was nice.

“How could you have any idea? This is utterly bizarre,” Siegfried said from across the room.

“It’s not even the strangest thing about you,” Dave said, awed. He gazed up at Klaus with an expression that Siegfried would later describe to Wilfred as “love-struck”.

The door opening next door pulled everyone back to reality. A voice- a female voice, which could only mean a nurse- resonated through the walls. Klaus could tell from the candour that it wasn’t his favourite Vietnamese nurse who was generous with the drugs. Oh no, it was the one he called Brunhelga after being confronted sneaking into the kitchens. She had chased him around the dining hall while the other patients laughed at him. But then Dave had given him a foot massage under the bridge and it had felt so good on his arches that he didn’t even get a boner.

“Time to go, I think,” Klaus said, ducking to kiss Dave one last time.

“You’re going to get caught,” Siegfried warned, as Klaus tried and failed to pick Dave up bridal style out of the wheelchair and continue to kiss him senseless.

Dave hoisted himself into his bed and pulled Klaus down again. “Good night,” he whispered into his mouth, and kissed him again for good measure.

Reluctantly, Klaus pulled away. With a spring in his step, he turned to Siegfried and said, “don’t worry about me. I have a special lookout squad.” If either Dave or Siegfried would have understood, he would have called it the Thot Patrol, but he figured he could explain all the slang he learned from Jerry Springer to Renwick later. He would probably get a kick out of it.

“Renwick!” he whispered, and Renwick appeared. “I need your help.”

“You done with your queer stuff?”

“For the night.”

“You’re a bit of a freak and Katz deserves better.”

“Thank you, Donald.”

“Welcome.”

“I need you to spot me while I sneak back to my room.”

“Hah, easy. Let’s go, Hargreeves.”

 

_October 31, 1917_

 

Halloween was Klaus’s least favourite holiday, for obvious reasons.

The hospital felt the same way, and as such, it was just another crisp autumn day.

And, like all other days, Doctor Brock had assigned Klaus to a new club in the hopes that he would last more than a week before antagonizing the rest of the club members or setting Brock’s beloved chickens loose in the hospital.

“If chickens are so therapeutic, why can’t everyone enjoy them?” Klaus had said. Brock had spent a full five minutes making notes before peering over his glasses and telling him there was no chance he was ever going to be declared sane. Klaus had shrugged and continued filing his nails with a grenade pin.

Despite this declaration, Brock had assigned Klaus to lead the next retreat of the Scottish Boys’ Club. Why a diagnosis of insanity allowed him to be around children was a mystery, but Klaus figured he could at least teach them how to make a bong out of an apple or some useful life skills. Brock had said they were a military-style group, but kids didn’t need to act like soldiers. Klaus would know.

He woke up a little bit early (a first for him, probably in his entire life) and went down to the kitchens where Hà Liên was usually hanging out. He could talk to her and she could talk to Mrs. Okereke about procuring a bushel of apples. It would leave him with ample time to show up at Dave’s room, let him brush his teeth, kiss him senseless, then meet the boys outside the hospital. It was going to be a good day.

“Hey,” he said, waving his ‘hello’ hand at the nurse.

“What are you doing here? You want more drugs?”

“Always to the point, aren’t you?” He thought about it for a second. “Actually, yeah, I need some weed.”

The nurse raised an eyebrow. “Is that it?”

“And some apples.”

“Mrs. Okereke hates apples. You’d have better luck shaking down the trees just past the fence if you don’t mind the aftertaste.”

“Ooh, perfect! A fun activity for my little hunters and gatherers! I’m teaching the boy scouts how to make a bong out of an apple,” he explained, twirling a hand in the air. “Thus the need for pot.”

“Arjay probably has some. Come back down in twenty minutes.”

“You’re an angel, nurse. My literal angel.”

She gave him a Look. “Don’t try so hard. It’s embarrassing.”

 

* * *

 

His next stop was Dave’s room. Klaus burst into the room like a beacon of sunshine. Dave was up and waiting for him, smiling radiantly. Siegfried grumbled and swore, smashing his pillow over his face.

“Is he trying to suffocate himself in his sleep?” Klaus asked as he skidded across the room in his socked feet. He had stopped wearing his ill-fitting army boots weeks ago and felt all the better for it.

“Just leave me alone,” came the muffled reply from the other side of the room. Klaus shrugged and leapt onto Dave’s bed.

“Good morning, darling,” he said, leaning in to kiss Dave. Dave reached for him and hung his arms around Klaus’s neck.

“Good morning.”

Dave pulled Klaus in to kiss him. It was a short, light kiss that Klaus enjoyed, because he could never _not_ enjoy kissing Dave, but left him unsatisfied.

“Hey,” he whispered, pulling back an inch. “do you think Siegfried would mind if we made out right now?”

Dave chuckled into Klaus’s mouth. “Let me brush my teeth first.”

Dave and his oral hygiene were so fucking adorable that Klaus could never say no, even if he didn’t mind that Dave’s morning breath wasn’t minty fresh. “I’ll come too,” Klaus said. Dave was such a good influence on him.

When they returned, Siegfried was asleep again, head rightfully on top of the pillow instead of the other way around, and snoring lightly. Klaus helped Dave back into bed as quietly as he could, and then climbed on top of him.

“Klaus, he’s _right there,_ ” Dave whispered, but Klaus shushed him with a finger on his lips.

“I can be quiet,” he whispered. Dave opened his mouth, licking Klaus’s forefinger and letting it rest on his tongue before closing his mouth around it, letting it go with a _pop_.

“You sure?” Dave teased, hands roaming over the front of Klaus’s uniform trousers. Klaus nodded and mimed zipping his lips.

“I want to taste you,” Dave whispered. “I want to taste your skin. I want to taste your come. Does that make me depraved?”

Klaus shook his head. He could feel the blood rush south at Dave’s words. His breath was coming heavier. “No. It makes you a tease,” he laughed. “All talk.”

Dave took it for what it was- a challenge- and popped the flies on Klaus’s uniform trousers. “Lay down,” he said, stopping with his hand covering the bulge in Klaus’s pants. “I want you under me.”

Klaus eagerly flipped onto his back, letting Dave position himself halfway down the bed next to him. Klaus fluffed up the blanket so it would create a partial cover if Siegfried woke up. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it was better than getting an eyeful of cock first thing in the morning. Most men at least needed breakfast first.

Dave peeled up the fabric of Klaus’s shirt, nosing at the skin and the fine hair that trailed downwards. Dave rested his head against Klaus’s belly for a moment, feeling the rise and fall of his breath.

“You okay down there?” Klaus whispered. Dave glanced up, looking at Klaus through lowered lashes.

“I thought I told you to be quiet,” he joked, but he tugged on Klaus’s trousers until Klaus lifted his hips, helping Dave shimmy them down around his thighs. He could see the outline of his cock through his underpants, and pressed a soft kiss to the head. He wanted to draw it out, to familiarize himself with this new, unexplored terrain in front of him, but there was no time. There was never enough time. Dave pushed the obstructing fabric down to join the khaki trousers and wrapped his hand around his boyfriend’s erection. He knew they didn’t have much time, but he slowed for a moment just to appreciate the pull of the skin, the warmth and softness of it, and the way Klaus was continuously stopping himself from throwing his head back so he could keep his eyes on Dave. He met Klaus’s eyes, wide and green and perfect, and without preamble, took the head of Klaus’s cock into his mouth.

Klaus stuffed a fist in his mouth, but it wasn’t him who had to be worried about making noise. The feeling of having his mouth filled, of bringing the man he loved pleasure while he watched, enraptured, as Dave tasted him for the first time- it was overwhelming. Dave moaned around Klaus’s cock and took in more. He wanted all of it. He wanted to lose himself in the sensation, create a feedback loop of pleasure that never ended, where it was just the two of them together forever, with no war, no doctors, no wheelchairs. He pulled back, trying to remember what Klaus had done to him that had felt so amazing. His brain wasn’t working properly though, so he gave an experimental suck to the head. Klaus whimpered behind his fist. Dave pulled off then, just so he could whisper, “you look amazing like this,” and then swirled his tongue around the tip.

Klaus reached for him then, and pulled on his hair until he raised his head. He held up a finger and dove under the blankets, squirming around until his head was level with Dave’s own cock, hot and heavy against his thigh. Klaus ground his hips towards Dave’s face, and Dave pulled himself up the bed until he could once again take Klaus in his mouth. It was a different angle, but only less satisfying in that he couldn’t see Klaus’s face this time. Instead, he felt the hot press of tongue against the underside of his cock and moaned. He’d never been so aroused in his life.

Dave closed his eyes and gave himself into sensation. The smell of Klaus’s skin and the taste of him, the feel of Klaus’s mouth around him, and the knowledge that Klaus- beautiful, extravagant, incredible _Klaus-_ couldn’t keep his hands off him were driving him closer and closer to the edge. He sucked again, hard, mouth popping off of Klaus’s dick with a filthy, wet sound that made Klaus push himself farther onto Dave’s cock, moans reverberating through his throat and straight into Dave’s cock. It felt _so fucking good_ and Dave stifled the sounds by taking Klaus back in his mouth again and starting a rhythm of pushing himself as far as he could go and pulling back and sucking. He grasped at Klaus’s thighs, pulling himself closer. His nose brushed against Klaus’s balls, and he thought _why not?_ and pulled away to mouth at them, lick at them, before returning his attention to Klaus’s cock.

“You’re so good at this, baby,” Klaus moaned. “I need to-“

His hips jerked forward on their own accord, and Dave nearly choked as Klaus’s dick drove further into his throat. _Oh_ , he thought. _I think I like this._

“Do that again,” he whispered. Klaus was in no state to deny him, and let his hips thrust into Dave’s mouth as he continued to deepthroat Dave’s cock. Dave could feel tears spill from his eyes as he kept his jaw slack and let Klaus thrust into his mouth. He could feel the erratic thrusts become more desperate and the moans vibrating through his cock became louder and louder and finally, Klaus was coming in his mouth and it was spilling over, down his chin onto the bedsheets, and the filthiness of it all combined with Klaus, who never for a second stopped worshipping Dave’s cock with him mouth pushed him over the edge and he was coming so hard his vision went white.

Dave took a breath, and another before raising his head and looking at Klaus. He smiled, more open and relaxed than Dave had seen him before. “Babe, that was-“

“Really?” Siegfried exclaimed, half in disbelief and half in perfect belief that yes, Klaus and Dave _would_ get funky while he was asleep in the room. Klaus began to laugh, then Dave began to laugh, and then they were in hysterics, Klaus pulling up his trousers and scrambling off Dave’s bed but getting tangled in the blankets and falling down to the ground, where Siegfried began beating him over the head with the pillow.

“Get out! Get out!”

Klaus turned to kiss Dave one last time, swiping his tongue into his mouth, hot and dirty, just to see him blush when he pulled away and licked his lips, enjoying the taste of himself on Dave’s tongue. Klaus turned, laughing and dancing out the door and Siegfried threw the pillow at his retreating back.

He bumped into Wilfred mid-twirl as he left the room. Wilfred seemed not to notice his dishevelled appearance, or else chose to ignore it. Klaus figured it was probably the former; no man could ignore when another man had come in his hair. He’d have to clean that up.

“Hello, Hargreeves.”

“Hi.”

“I was wondering… can you summon Keats?” Wilfred asked.

“What?”

“Siegfried told me you can speak to the dead,” Wilfred whispered conspiratorially.

“Uh, yeah?”

“So, can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Summon Keats.”

“Who?”

“Keats. John Keats.”

Klaus shrugged and shook his head.

“The poet?”

Klaus shook his head again. “Never heard of him.”

Wilfred made a sound like a kicked puppy and slumped against the wall.

“Your boyfriend’s grumpy this morning, by the way.”

“He’s not my-“ Wilfred started, but Klaus was already gone.

 

* * *

 

Dave, for his part, was utterly humiliated.   
  
“I would expect this sort of activity from him, but from you? He’s a bad influence, you know.” Siegfried had finished dressing, making a point not to look at Dave as he tried his best to clean up the mess he had made of his bed.

“It was a bad idea, I know. I’m sorry.” Siegfried huffed, grabbing his golf clubs.

“I have an appointment with Rivers. Think about what I said.” He made to leave the room, but a knock on the door came just as he was about to open it. Wilfred stood there, barefaced hope written across his features.

“Good morning Siegfried!”

Siegfried pushed past him. “Not today, Owen. I’m busy.”

Wilfred stood, shocked, in the doorway. Dave, desperately wanting some time alone to clean himself up and recover from the shame of being caught having clandestine morning sex, offered a weak smile and suggested, “Maybe try back later?”

Wilfred still looked hurt, but he nodded and mumbled something about breakfast. Dave looked at the sheets pooled around his waist and cursed out loud. Laundry was in the basement.

 

* * *

 

Wilfred came back just before lunchtime, knocking tentatively at the door and finding Dave occupying his wheelchair and flipping through a book Siegfried had on his nightstand.

“He’s still not in, I’m afraid.”

“I-I came to s-see you, actually,” Wilfred stuttered. His stutter had improved markedly, but words still stumbled out of him when he was nervous.

“Oh?” Dave closed the book and placed it back on the nightstand between the two beds. Wilfred sat silently on Siegfried’s bed and stared at the book.

“I’m from Shropshire, you know.”

For a moment, Dave was confused. It took him a moment to realize the book he had just put down was entitled _A Shropshire Lad_.

“Well,” Dave said, eyeing the book. “that makes perfect sense. You’re _his_ Shropshire lad.”

Wilfred sputtered, throwing his hands up in front of him as if he could wave Dave’s words away. “He doesn’t think of me like that. Not at all.”

Dave was taken aback. “Of course he does.” He stated it like a fact. Because it was a fact. Siegfried talked about Wilfred all the time. He wrote letters about him to his friends. They spent all their time together. It was the worst kept secret in the hospital, after Klaus and Dave.

“No, not like you and Hargreeves. Klaus.” He was still staring at the book. “This morning, when I came by…”

Dave closed his eyes and braced for it.

“Did you two just… you know?” He looked imploringly at Dave. Dave grimaced. Wilfred took it as a sign of non-comprehension and leaned forward. “Did you have sex?” he whispered, eyes wide and innocent.

“Um, yeah. We did.” It still didn’t seem real. Here he was, a time traveller, a survivor of two wars (so far), grievously injured, and despite it all he managed to snag himself a boyfriend (who was, in Dave’s opinion, way out of his league), whom he had actually managed to _have sex with._ Life was wild.

“Yeah we did!” he said again, this time with gusto. “It was amazing,” he said, sensing Wilfred’s next question. Wilfred sighed dreamily. Dave wondered if this was what he had missed out on in his youth. 

“I would love to have what you two have.”

“You will, Wilfred. He just needs to get over himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s just scared.”

“No he isn’t.”

“He is. He loved someone who was killed and is scared it’s going to happen to you.”

“He couldn’t love someone like me.”

“Wilfred, he thinks you’re amazing. He called you ‘his tiny Keats’ in a letter to a friend.”

“I didn’t know you were censoring letters.”

“I’m not.” Dave smiled and shrugged, a gesture he adopted from Klaus that perfectly encapsulated his nonchalant penchant for rebellion. Wilfred dropped his gaze and stared at his lap.

“I can’t tell him. It would ruin everything.”

“Wilfred,” Dave said sternly, rolling up until his knees bumped against Wilfred’s. “War doesn’t wait. War doesn’t discriminate. War takes and takes and takes and never stops taking people away. There’s no time to waste on thinking about these things. When do you get out of the hospital?”

“The fourth.”

“So you only have three more days together. Tell him.”

“I’m not like you, Katz.”

“And Siegfried’s nothing like Klaus! Sure, you admire his writing, but he’s just a normal guy. Not like Klaus. Klaus is… Siegfried is pretentious and he plays too much golf and he’s totally in denial when he says he’s not neurasthenic like the rest of us and he’s _so_ grumpy in the morning.“ Dave stopped when he saw the look on Wilfred’s face, broken and devastated at the insults being hurled at his hero. “He likes spending time with you. He talks about you. He always tells me the things you say and the funny things you do and once he even told me that if his brother were still alive, he’d like him to meet you.”

 “But how did you know that Klaus would… respond? Favourably?”

“I didn’t. Not really. But it got so bad that I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him every time we were together. We almost kissed, back in the dugout the night before Messines, but we didn’t. The whole battle, all I could think of was how much I regretted not doing it. I prayed I wouldn’t die, just so I could have another chance.”

“I think you two are perfect together.”

Dave could feel his cheeks get warm. “I still can’t believe he chose _me_ ,” he smiled.

A knock on the door halted their conversation.

“Oh,” Dave said, surprised.

“Hello boys,” Hà Liên said, poking her head in the doorway. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.” She waited, expectant.

“Nothing important,” Wilfred said hastily.

“Nothing… earth shattering?” she asked.

Wilfred shook his head. “Nothing we talked about is going to change anything.”

Hà Liên smiled, and said, “Sometimes it’s for the best. Stability keeps everyone safe.”

Dave frowned. He’d been around long enough to know that Hà Liên was never this friendly with the patients. “Did you need one of us, Hà Liên?” he asked. He took care to pronounce her name correctly since everyone else, including the doctors tended to falter and simply call her ‘nurse’. He wondered if he ever encountered any of her descendants in A Shau. The thought made him sick.

“I thought I’d ask if you wanted to go into town, Mr. Katz. Mr. Owen’s mother is coming up this afternoon and your Mr. Hargreeves is out, and I didn’t want you to get bored.”

Dave was startled, but not as startled as Wilfred. “My mother!? Today!?”

“Susan, yes? I can’t believe you weren’t made aware. She’ll be here on the two o’clock train.”

Wilfred began frantically tidying the room before straightening, remembering that he was in Dave and Siegfried’s room, not his own. He excused himself and tripped running out the door.

“That was easy.”

The orderly with the turban entered and shut the door behind him, barricading it shut with the sole chair in the room. “Dave Katz?” he asked. Hà Liên pushed Dave’s wheelchair into the corner of the room and pulled the curtains.

“Um, yes?” Dave said.

“We have some questions for you.”

Dave looked between the two, confused. “I don’t understand. If the doctor needs me-“

Hà Liên extended a hand, into which the orderly placed a large hunting knife. Dave had no idea where he had been hiding it. “Thank you, Arjay.”

“The doctor doesn’t need to see you. Nor will he, if you answer all our questions.” Hà Liên said. Her face had changed. She no longer looked like the apathetic nurse that Klaus always went on about. She looked dangerous. Dave also supposed she was much more menacing towering over him with a knife in her hand.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Because I have shell shock?” Dave answered.

Arjay rolled his eyes. “Are you really going to play this game?”

“What game?”

“The one where you pretend you don’t know anything about your plan to alter the timeline.”

Dave was struck speechless.

“What year were you born in, David Katz? Real answer, please.” Arjay reached under his pagri and pulled out a solar calculator.

“Oh my gosh,” Dave said, pointing at the little solar panels. “You travelled through time too!”

“I told you to leave the fucking calculator at home!” Hà Liên swatted the calculator out of Arjay’s hands. If it had batteries, the battery panel would have opened and they would have skidded out, lost to the terrible abyss that was the underneath of a soldier’s bed. Luckily, Arjay always opted for solar power. He’d been to the future. He knew about global warming. He’d have to remind Hà Liên about the dangers of battery acid when they finished this mission.

“Why? It won’t be a secret once we tell him he’s under arrest.”

“I’m under arrest?” Dave asked. His eyes widened like a kicked puppy. Hà Liên and Arjay had to look away lest their mission be compromised.

Hà Liên cleared her throat. “What year were you born?”

“1939.”

“Where did you come from?”

“1968.”

“Where?”

“A Shau Valley. Vietnam” Hà Liên looked almost amused as she continued pressing the question.

 “Lovely spot for vacation? Or were you doing something else in my beloved home?”

“I was…Vietnam War.” Hà Liên’s eyes narrowed.

“Lovely. What division?”

“It… I didn’t… I-“ Dave sputtered. He had a feeling he knew where this was going. He knew there was no right answer to Hà Liên’s questions.

“What. Division,” she said through gritted teeth.

“173rd Airborne, ma’am,” he said softly. She knelt down next to him and leaned in close. She wanted to see the hair on his neck stand on end when she told him what she and Arjay had done on the A Shau case.

“Do you remember when Captain Grant went missing?” she asked.

He did. Oh God, he did.

“Did you find him?” she whispered. Dave nodded. The memory of stumbling across a flayed corpse hanging from a tree wasn’t an image that would leave a man. His dog tags were embedded into the muscle of his chest, cemented in with blood. Medic had pried them out with a scalpel. The smell was unbearable in the heat of the jungle and stuck to them; their hair, their clothes. It got in their eyes, settled in their noses, filled the void when Dave began retching into the nearest bush.

“Good,” she whispered, before standing and retreating back to stand beside her partner. Arjay was sharpening a long, curved blade with a whetstone.

“Ready to answer our questions, soldier?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes 
> 
> Next: How Five, at the tender age of 58, joins the Boy Scouts.


	9. Interlude D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Five, at the tender age of 58, joins the Boy Scouts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last one was the horny chapter and now we're back on the plot train.
> 
> CHOO CHOO

Five had, for about 30 seconds in his life, felt envious of those boys who led normal lives. This half minute occurred when he was seven years old and training in the ravine. He was working on perfecting the location of his spacial rifts when he came across a group of Boy Scouts camping. They were roasting marshmallows and telling terribly tame ghost stories, but they all looked very happy about it. Five watched them from the tree branch he had portalled to, then shrugged and jumped away thinking _who goes camping in the daytime?_

This moment in time didn’t play a huge factor in Five’s life as it was quickly swamped by more important things like fighting crime and the apocalypse.

And it was the apocalypse that had brought him here, to 1917, to track down his erstwhile brother and enlist his help, or at least his presence, to stop the world from ending.

And this was how, at the age of 58, Five joined the Scottish Boy Scouts.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a degrading departure from his position as esteemed Temporal Assassin. He was surrounded by children who wanted to play at being in the military; four hours a day were dedicated to learning how to march and fall into formation and fix wooden bayonets on toy guns, which was a useless skill. By the time these kids were old enough to fight, bayonets would be obsolete. They’d be better off learning how to fly bombers or build nukes.

And the worst part of it all was that all the boys were Scottish.

Not that Five had anything against the Scots. There was a Scotsman who lived in 1974 who made a wonderful peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. Made the marshmallows from scratch in his candy store and let Five have the extras at the end of the day. If he wasn’t so damn good at his job, he would have delayed the mission just for more of those marshmallows.

No, his problem was that the only word he could understand that came out of these kids’ mouths was “oi”, which was, thankfully about half of their vocabulary.

“Oi, Five!” One of the kids, a chubby ginger kid who always smelt of molasses chased after him as he stalked ahead of them towards the hospital. “Stay in line!”

Five whipped around and grabbed Tubby by the shoulders. He gave him The Smile. “Maybe you should march a little faster. We don’t have time to waste.”

Technically speaking, he had 102 years, but he would never admit that to an eleven year old boy.

Fate owed him big, and today She delivered. He was waiting, casually picking at the loose threads on one of the patches on his sash when Klaus walked out of the hospital building carrying a burlap sack.

“Children!” he exclaimed, as the well-trained boys stood to attention and saluted. “Relax, relax. We’re doing something fun today.”

“Um, you’re supposed to say ‘stand down’, sir,” said an uptight know-it-all named Gavin. Klaus sauntered down the line to loom over him.

“Are you questioning your superior officer, you little turd?” Gavin, taken aback, said nothing. Five rolled his eyes. Klaus hadn’t noticed him yet. Good. He’d try to get him alone.

“Anyone else have something to say? Because you can gladly sit this one out!” None of the boys moved a muscle, the suck-ups.

“Alright men, forward march to the apple trees!” Klaus led the group towards the ravine past the fence, hopping it easily and waiting for each of them to follow suit. He gave Tubby a leg up, which was something Five would never have expected from Klaus. He fell in at the end of the line, and when all the boys were forward-marching to the trees, he portalled past the fence, right next to his brother.

“Hello.”

“Shit, Five, what the hell?”

“Is that any way to greet your brother?”

“It’s how I greet all our siblings.”

Five considered this for a moment. He was right. All things considered, it was a pretty welcoming greeting.

“Come on, I need to give them instructions on how to pick the perfect apple.” Klaus jogged over the group of boys. They were poking each other with sticks, as all young boys were prone to do.

It was an oddly innocent thing. Klaus, his junkie brother, helping Scottish boy scouts pick apples perfectly sized to fit in their hand.

“You want it to fit nice, so you don’t drop it. Don’t get anything too big, boys. Don’t get greedy. Very nice, Dugald. That’s a beauty.”

Once all the boys had found apples (Five hastily grabbing one to keep up appearances) Klaus took them down to a clearing where he upended the burlap sack and handed them each a spoon and a pencil.

“Alright, first, you get rid of the stem.” He twisted the stem off his apple and tossed it over his shoulder. “Then, we stick the other end of the spoon into the apple, about halfway. This is the fun part. We’re going to hollow out a little space in the apple.”

It was around this point when Five began to doubt the integrity of Klaus’s “lesson”. He watched, dumbstruck, as he realized that Klaus was teaching a bunch of children how to make a bong.

 

* * *

 

Following the lesson, Klaus loaded up his own apple bong and struck a match off a tree, holding it up and taking a hit of apple-weed. At least the children, who were back to poking each other with sticks weren’t offered any. Five shook his head. Some things never changed.

“Klaus, we need to talk.”

“You mean you didn’t travel all this way just to visit me? I’m hurt.” He began swaying, taking another hit on the apple bong before placing a hand (still holding the lit match) over his heart. He dropped the match when it singed his shirt, and he threw off his uniform jacket, stomping it on the ground to put out the grass fire he had just started.

“Christ, you’re a disaster,” Five said. He was wondering if this had been a waste of time. Did he really _need_ Klaus to stop the apocalypse?

“Sure am, bro. Wanna see my gangrene?” Klaus asked. He enthusiastically began wrenching up his right trouser leg.  

“You haven’t changed at all.”

Klaus laughed, a long “haaaaa” that disappeared into the trees around them. He picked his jacket off the ground, throwing it over his arm.

“What happened there?” Five asked, pointing to the mangled skin of Klaus’s left forearm.

“More gangrene. Lovely place, the trenches.”

“You were in the trenches?”

“Yes?”

“ _You_?”

“Me.”

“In the _trenches?”_

“That’s where I was.”

“Christ, that’s crazy. How’d you get here?”

Klaus filled him in, leaving out certain parts involving Love and Feelings. “I kind of like it here,” he finished. They were laying on their backs in the clearing, surrounded by boy scouts, some still brandishing pointy sticks, some eating their apple bongs, some asleep in the grass.

“Well, it’s time to come back.”

Klaus sat up abruptly. “What for?”

“To stop the end of the world.”

“When does it end?”

Five rolled his eyes. “2019, obviously. It couldn’t end before that now, could it?”

Klaus lay back down. “But like, 2019 is over a hundred years away. I don’t need to worry about it.”

Five always knew Klaus was crazy, but the time travel must have messed with his mind. Who wanted to stay in 1917? Unless…

“What did you do?”

“Huh?”

“What did you do? Did you do something illegal in the present? Did you alter the timeline in the past? Make yourself a millionaire? Predict the future? What did you do that’s keeping you here?”

Klaus chuckled. “Oh,” he said softly.

“Because if you altered _anything_ the Commission will be after you in a heartbeat and they’re going to _fuck your shit up_.”

“Oh ye of little faith, little bro.”

“I’m older than you, idiot.”

“Only in years.”

“That’s… how age works.”

Klaus grinned and hopped to his feet. “Let’s go boys! Back to the hospital to show off your marching!” The boys scrambled into lines and followed their troupe leader out of the clearing back into the woods.

 

* * *

 

The boys had been dismissed, and only Five was left. He’d taken the sash off and thrown it in the river, which turned out to be more of a stream. The red sash sat where he threw it, visible at the bottom of the shallow trickle of water. How anticlimactic.

“I can’t leave, Five,” Klaus said. He sounded serious, for once.

“You don’t belong here. You belong with the Academy.”

Klaus scoffed. “No one belongs in that hellhole.”

“Fair point, but you were there. In the future. So you have to come back.”

“What if I don’t? Can’t I make this into a side universe or something? Someplace I can live happily ever after with my Prince Charming and my noble steed and a magical ballgown made of Kool Aid packets?”

Five grabbed Klaus by the shoulders and shook him as hard as he could. “What the hell happened to you? When did you ever believe in happy endings?”

Klaus smirked. “Well, on the corner of 8th and Seymour there’s a massage parlour…”

“Shut up! You-“ It dawned on him then. “You fell in love, didn’t you? You bastard.”

The smile that lit up Klaus’s face was equal parts goofy and dreamy, and he sighed happily. “Yeah. His name’s Dave,” he said, before gasping and sitting upright. “You should meet him! Give us your blessing or something. And then leave us alone to our… gaiety.”

“Klaus, if it changes the timestream-“

“Oh, hush, brother. He’s also a time traveler.”

If he ever got back in the good books of the Commission, he’d really have to tell them to lock up the briefcases better.

 

* * *

 

They reached the patient rooms in the back hallway after being accosted by an alarming amount of nurses cooing over Five. Five had never been cooed over before. He didn’t like it. Klaus had played the part perfectly, just like he had at the lab. This time, _thank God,_ he referred to Five as his little brother. Still condescending, but not nearly as repulsive as the idea of Klaus having spawned him.

Klaus began to fidget when they arrived at one of the nondescript closed doors.

“Are you… sober?” Five asked in disbelief.

“Hah!” Klaus laughed, scratching the back of his head and dancing from foot to foot. “No. I’ve been forced to cut back, though. Drugs in this decade are terrible, Five. _Terrible._ All they want to do is give you cocaine. You know how I feel about cocaine.”

“I don’t, nor do I care.” He pushed past Klaus and knocked on the door. Silence. He knocked again.

“Oh, maybe he’s out. I thought he’d be waiting for me,” Klaus said dejectedly. “He always does.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re pathetic.”

“Thanks.” Klaus elbowed his way in front of the door and turned the knob. “We crazies aren’t allowed locks,” he explained.

There were a multitude of scenes he could have imagined waiting behind that wooden door. This was not one of them. Dave was backed into the corner, hands tied to the arms of his wheelchair. His face and chest were covered in blood; it was still trickling in a steady stream out of his nose and he gasped, spitting blood onto the floor beside him.

Hà Liên’s right hand was also covered in wet blood. She was behind his chair, holding a short curved knife against the frantic pulse of Dave’s throat. Arjay was standing on one of the beds, struggling to hold a squawking chicken as it flapped and flailed.

“What the fuck,” Five said, portalling past Klaus into the room.

“Shit!” Arjay exclaimed, casually tucking the ornery chicken back under his pagri. He made a face and winced in pain. “Bad idea,” he said, removing the chicken. It had a clump of black hair clasped in its beak. “How may I help you, young man?”

Five closed his eyes. He missed looking his age. “I’m Five.”

“You’re awful tall for five.”

“No, you idiot, I’m Five. There was an… issue and I’m stuck like this.” Arjay ‘ahh’ed in understanding. Five figured he wouldn’t mention defecting from the Commission to stop the apocalypse. They clearly didn’t know about it yet, and he planned to keep it that way.

“What are you two doing here?”

“On a job,” Hà Liên said, staying where she was. “Unauthorized time travel with intent to disrupt the timeline.”

“I didn’t _intend_ to do anything!” Dave cried  

“No,” Hà Liên said. “Not yet.”

“How can you arrest me for something that I haven’t done?”

“Because you _will_ do it.”

“What if I don’t?”

“You will.”

“But what if I take special care not to?”

“That’s not how it works.” Hà Liên pressed the knife in closer. Dave flinched as it cut shallowly into the vulnerable skin of his neck, blood oozing in the wake of the knife’s path.

Arjay interrupted. “Look, let’s just get on with the torturing. Mrs. Okereke’s making fresh bread as we speak and I’d like to try some while it’s still warm.”

“Stop it,” said a quiet voice. Klaus had been quiet in the doorway up until this point. “Stop hurting him,” he said again, just as quietly. Five didn’t think he had ever heard Klaus be quiet in his life. This was new. This was… something different.

It was something very different, Five thought, as Klaus began to shake. It wasn’t his usual withdrawal tremor, or the jitters he always had when he was high. It was like all the atoms in his body were vibrating at the same time, in the same direction. His eyes stayed focussed on Dave, even when he began to lift off the ground, rising a foot in the air where he stayed, suspended. Hà Liên, Arjay, and Five all watched, transfixed. Dave, for some reason, smiled and watched Klaus rise in awe.

The chicken broke free of Arjay’s hold at the same time all the glass in the windows shattered. The glass hovered where it sat in the window frame, broken and jagged and sharp.

“Get the chicken, Five.” Klaus’s eyes had gone pale but from his hands, an electric blue light emanated, bright even in the light of the afternoon. Five, feeling he was about to witness something extraordinary and unwilling to jeopardize it by questioning his brother’s insane command, portalled up to Arjay and grabbed the chicken, tossing it through a portal to outside and returning to the hospital interior. He waited in the hallway behind Klaus, just in case.

It was a wise decision. Klaus raised his hands and the glass shards turned, hundreds of tiny knives poised and ready. “I told you,” he said slowly, “not to hurt him.” He clenched the fist of his ‘hello’ hand. Only the goodbye remained in sight, an ominous prelude. Klaus cocked his head to the side, and the glass began to rain down on them. It swirled around like a tornado, catching Arjay first in its midst and tearing the bed sheets to shreds. The spiral surged and waved like an ocean swirling around Dave but leaving him untouched. Hà Liên was caught in it, and she raised her hands to her face and screamed.

Arjay was next to her in seconds, opening the briefcase he had pulled from under his pagri, and then they were gone. Hà Liên’s scream still echoed in their ears.

The glass storm stilled and fell to the ground. Bloodstained shards of glass crunched beneath Five’s feet as he portalled into the room and began to examine the shredded bed sheets. Klaus was still levitating, but his eyes were their normal green once more. He took a confident step forward into thin air and fell hard on his face.

“Shit,” he said. The fall seemed to knock him back into his normal self. The quiet, dangerous side of Klaus was gone, but Five could sense that it was still there, beneath the surface. Only time would tell what Klaus would do with it.

“What was with the chicken?” Five asked. Klaus was lying face down on the ground, barely conscious. It was a fairly common state for him to be in. Dave was staring at Klaus with a mixture of terror and awe. Blood still trickled from his nose but it had began to clot along the thin laceration crossing his neck making an ugly red line. He was bleeding heavily from a cut across his temple, presumably from the glass. He didn’t seem to notice.

“The chicken?” Five asked again. Silence. Until,

“Pecker II.” Dave uttered.

“Excuse me?”

“Klaus’s favourite chicken. They were going to…” he stopped abruptly. “Can you help me get Klaus on the bed?”

“Why? He always passes out on the floor,” Five said. He wasn’t wrong.

“I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Well, I have, and I’m his brother. We lived together for thirteen years. He’ll be fine.”

Klaus began to stir as Dave fired back, “And I say he won’t be, because _I_ care about not letting the love of my life lay face down in a bed of broken glass.”

He looked up groggily at Dave. “I thought I heard your voice, honeybuns. You okay?”

Dave looked down at him with extreme tenderness. “Thanks to you, darling. You saved my life.”

“I did?” Klaus asked happily. His words slurred together.

“Yeah, baby. You did it. Can you get up? Come lay down until you feel better.”

“Only if you sleep with me,” he said, climbing to his feet agonizingly slow. He looked like a baby deer trying to stand for the first time on a frozen pond covered with olive oil.

“Christ,” Five said.

“Not like that!” Klaus yelled from the downward dog position he seemed to have gotten stuck in. “Well, yes like that. But not now. I don’t feel too good.”

He was eventually deposited heavily on the bed by a frustrated Five.

“Alright. Talk.” Klaus scrunched up his face and threw an arm across his forehead.

“Not until my Davey holds me in his strong sexy arms.” Dave blushed and shrugged at Five. He pulled himself across the bed until he was leaning against the wall, letting Klaus rest his head in his lap. Klaus hummed warmly and Dave began petting his hair. Five looked at them with disgust.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked Dave.

“Dave,” said Dave.

“Why is the Commission after you?”

Dave shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“A pair of assassins just tried to kill you and you have no idea why?”

“Pretty much,” Dave said. He was still smiling. Five thought he might be a crazy man. Then again, from what he’d heard so far, he actually _liked_ being around his brother, so he would have to be at least a medium-level crazy. “I’m not from here, though. A briefcase fell on me.”

Five blinked. Then he blinked again. He must have blinked at least five more times before processing what Dave had just said.

“I…” Five paused, wondering what his best course of action was. “I’m going to make a phone call. Those two won’t be back for a while. I know them. They’re planners. It’ll take them some time to reorganize. In the mean time…” he looked down at Klaus, who had fallen asleep again in Dave’s lap. “Make sure he doesn’t die.”

Dave nodded. For some reason, he felt like he should salute. But the kid was wearing the Scottish Boy’s Club uniform, and saluting a boy scout felt weird. Instead, he raised a hand in a wave. “Nice to meet you!” he shouted after Five as he disappeared in a flash of blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE ARE REACHING A CLIMAX HERE
> 
> Next: The Assassins revert to Plan A, Dr. Rivers does what he does best, and Klaus forgets that the astronomy tower has stairs.
> 
> Also please talk to me about my OCs and Dave being a dweeb on bluebacchus.tumblr.com because I need a distraction from packing my giant suitcase


	10. Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Assassins revert to Plan A, Dr. Rivers does what he does best, and Klaus forgets that the astronomy tower has stairs. Things are resolved and somehow, nothing is resolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my loves! We're so close to the end but I'm afraid there's going to be a bit of a delay... I'm leaving for Scotland in two days and spending the rest of the summer in the UK. The plus side is I'm going to visit the actual Craiglockhart War Hospital (now a university campus) which has been my dream vacation for years but also I care enough about this fic that I'm dead set on finishing it while over there.
> 
> So updates are still coming, they might just be on a wacky schedule.
> 
> That aside, WHO'S READY TO LEARN THAT AGENT CHARLES IS, IN FACT, CHARLES SCOTT MONCRIEFF THE FAMOUS TRANSLATOR, WRITER, AND LITERARY CRITIC 
> 
> (my solitary cheer echoes into the void)

I.

His moment had finally come, and he nearly missed it by being held up in the bloody hospital. The War Office assignment was necessary, he was told, and he was to procure it at any cost necessary. The cost this time: his leg.

He’d been through it all before, you see.

This was the second time around and Charles Scott Moncrieff was liking it a lot less than the first. The first was, of course, an unsustainable timeline that was doomed to fail because of fixed points and all that bullshit the Commission sent him.

What really mattered was that they paid him well enough to keep a room rented out on Half Moon Street where he could read and write and talk shit about other writers with Robbie Ross and toast to Robbie’s old flame (Irish bloke- overrated playwright, in Charles’s opinion) who’s been dead for seventeen years but still manages to come up in conversation every time they went for a pint.

He snapped his fingers, and an orderly appeared at his side. At least some of the hospital staff was efficient. “Push me to the phone now, will you, lad?” He added a forced smile at the end. His leg was still in excruciating pain from being poked and prodded by the doctor, and he endured it only to be told that he would never be able to walk normally again. Charles had raised an eyebrow, showcasing his well-trained look of Scottish Disdain and stood up. The flash of pain had been nearly blinding, but he refused to miss the expression on his doctor’s face when he got out of his wheelchair. The appointment had run long after that. He was sent down to a woman who had built him something that looked like a cage, into which he was to insert his leg. It was ridiculously uncomfortable, but she had promised adjustments and it did make it easier to bear weight on the leg that had been torn to pieces by shrapnel.

Ah, what a lovely war.

He may have been down a leg but he had received a telegram earlier in the morning stating that his employment in the War Office had been secured. He was out of danger and the Commission owed him a raise.

The orderly left Charles in front of a table which held only the telephone. There was a handwritten sign that said ‘hospital staff only’ which Charles ignored. He called, and time froze.

“Hello again, Charles,” the Handler said, appearing behind him, impeccably dressed as always. 

“Good morning, ma’am.”

“Have you discovered what alters the timeline?”

“I have.”

“Good.”

 

* * *

 

The tube smashed into the wooden cabinet above the stove so hard that bits of splintered wood rained into Mrs. Okereke’s soup. Hà Liên winced, but Mrs. Okereke shrugged and returned to stirring. “Adds flavour,” she said, hitting the cabinet doors with a fist to add more wood chips to the soup. “No spice rations this week.”

Hà Liên opened the cupboard by leaning over Mrs. Okereke and removed the tube. It was cc’d from Charles. She figured she’d let Arjay open it and get his kicks.

They’d been hiding in the kitchens for the past three days regrouping and letting Mrs. Okereke excitedly take her place as their accomplice. She was a more accomplished nurse than Hà Liên was, even after the months of undercover work, and patched up their wounds using only vinegar, napkins, and medical tape. They looked ridiculous with bits of napkin taped over their various scratches and cuts, but Mrs. Okereke saved their dignity by sending away her kitchen staff to venture out into the woods and find herbs to use in place of the missing spice ration. She also assigned a majority of them to use the second kitchen to bake a steady stream of apple pies. “One for every two soldiers!” she commanded.

Hà Liên and Arjay owed her a lot. They knew how much she hated the smell of apple pie.

“Message from your lover,” Hà Liên said, tossing the tube over her shoulder.

Arjay caught it and opened it faster than a four year old’s first present on Christmas morning. “It’s not like that! It’s just his _mind,_ Hà Liên. It’s so…”

“Sexy?” she supplied.

“…yes.” He paused to read the directive, lips moving silently and face slowly falling into disbelief. “I can’t believe it.”

He passed the note to Hà Liên. She shook her head.

“So, I guess the sweet, charming, handsome man in the wheelchair _is_ our target?”

Hà Liên was in the same state of disbelief. Dave was the only patient in the hospital who called her by her name. Torturing him had been terrible. He had looked so betrayed.

“He didn’t know anything!” Hà Liên argued. “We haven’t even discussed why the hell Five is here, because that clearly has something to do with it.”

“Or Hargreeves and his… thing.” Arjay shuddered. The cuts across his face were deep but healing, thanks to a quick trip to the 21st century. Hà Liên didn’t fare much better. The biting pain of the glass brought back memories of fire and with it, her anger.

Arjay continued. “But we have to kill Dave, the sweetest guy in the hospital, because he indirectly prevents the _other_ sweetest guy in the hospital from getting killed one week before the war ends?”

“We shouldn’t think about it. We never do.”

“We’ve never been undercover this long before.”

“You going soft, Arjay? You want to stay and keep pushing wheelchairs around?”

“Hà Liên, we-“

“You know what happens if we go rogue.”

“They might not find us.”

“They will.”

Arjay lifted up his pagri and pulled out a brochure. “Not if we’re in a blind spot.” He handed over the pamphlet.

_Want an exciting career in saving lives? Apply with the Nogales Paramedics today!_

“Wouldn’t it be nice to help people? We could save lives, Hà Liên, not take them!”

“There’s no such thing as a blind spot.”

“There is! The ‘90s has a ton of them. And I know how much you hate Agent Clinton. We could mess with his plans!”

Hà Liên paused to consider. It was true that this job wasn’t sitting well with her, but the Commission had saved her. The Handler had pulled her away, given her purpose. She had let her choose her name. Sure, The Handler had never learned to pronounce it, but she was a busy woman. Arjay didn’t have the same experience, she knew. He didn’t owe the Commission everything.

“What about Charles?” she said, hitting him where it hurt. “Won’t he be disappointed that our job falls on him?”

Arjay groaned. “Oh God, you’re right. I know you’re just saying that to get me to finish the mission but you know me too damn well.”

“This is the only way.”

“It has to be tonight, doesn’t it?”

“Katz talks Owen into confessing to Sassoon who has connections who get Owen a job where-“

“Okay, I get it. This is getting too confusing.”

“Plan A?”

“Plan A.”

Plan A, of course, was to kill the bastard and get paid.

 

II.

 

Wilfred’s train left at ten the next morning but his bag sat empty in the closet, neglected. He paced across the small room, back and forth, over and over again, pausing only to glance at his watch before remembering that it was broken, the face cracked in an angry line across the ten and down to the five. He was leaving Craiglockhart at ten the next morning. He was leaving Siegfried at ten the next morning, and the thought of it made him want to curl up on his bed and cry.

He had one night left to find the courage to tell the other man how he felt. One night left to steal a final moment of joy before being released back into the hold of the British Army. He was no coward, but he didn’t want to go back. Not ever, but especially not now. He was so close to working up the courage to confess his love to Siegfried; each time they met in the other man’s room, or out on the grounds, or in the dining hall Wilfred was certain that the perfect moment would arise next time. Each interaction was building up to something, but the something never came. Tonight, it would have to. Tonight, Siegfried was treating him to dinner at the Conservative Club in town, away from the hospital, away from the doctors, away from everyone else. It would be just the two of them, and it would be perfect.

 

* * *

 

Klaus was mostly unconscious for a full 24 hours after The Incident. After Five blinked away, Dave didn’t know what to do. He had a lapful of sleeping Klaus, his face was bleeding, and the floor was covered with shattered glass. He could call a nurse, he supposed. He decided against it, and decided to have a nap.

He woke hours later partly because of the chill and partly because Siegfried entered the room, stopped short of the door and sighed loudly enough to wake him.

“What did you do this time?” he asked.

“Klaus learned how to fly and broke the glass to save me from the nurse who was trying to murder me.”

Siegfried banged his head against the door a couple of times, muttering to himself about how he was the only sane person in the building. He stopped short of giving himself a minor concussion and left to go alert hospital administration that he and his roommate would need a new room.

Klaus regained consciousness while he was gone, emerging groggily from his state of unconscious.

“Hi,” he said, grinning stupidly at Dave.

“Hi,” Dave said, grinning equally stupidly at Klaus.

Then Klaus caught sight of the laceration across his cheek and suddenly, the smile was gone.

“Did I do that?” he asked quietly.

Dave reached up and wiped away some of the crusted blood on his face. “You saved me.”

“I hurt you.”

Dave kissed Klaus on the forehead instead of replying.

“Quit it!” Klaus said, pushing Dave’s face away. “I’m trying to wallow in self pity! You can’t just swoop in with your forehead kisses. It’s too soft.”

“Soft?”

“Yeah, soft. Like fluffy unicorns and cupcake decorating stations and flirtinis.”

Dave furrowed his brow. “What the heck is a flirtini?”

He passed out again after that and didn’t wake until the next afternoon.

 

* * *

 

Without so much as a good morning, Klaus stretched his arms over his head and inadvertently slapped Dave in the face.

“I’d give anything for a hot dog right now.”

Dave grabbed Klaus’s flailing arms by the wrists and held them up to his face. He bent over, looking upside down at the man lying across his lap.

“What kind of hot dog? Like, baseball game hot dog? Or carnival corn dog? Or a New York street vendor hot dog?

“Any kind of hot dog,” said Klaus, cupping Dave’s cheeks with his palms and smushing them together.

“You know what those are made of, right?”

“…pork?”

“Lips and buttholes, Klaus. Lips. And buttholes.”

“Good thing I don’t mind the taste of either.” Klaus smirked, knowing full what he had just implied.

“Uh,” Dave said dumbly.

“Baby, when I get you alone I’m going to do all kinds of wicked, wicked things to you.” Klaus shifted, rubbing his cheek against Dave’s thigh. “Consensually,” he added.

“That…” Dave paused. He couldn’t find the words for how totally on board with that he was. “That sounds nice.”

“Mmm,” Klaus hummed in agreement.

“Are we alone now?”

“No. Wood’s over there making gagging noises and Renwick’s pretending to jerk off my roommate’s teddy bear. That’s his daughter’s, you sicko!”

Dave smiled, laughing as he bent over to kiss the top of Klaus’s head. “All for the best. We should go say goodbye to Wilfred.”

“I’ll catch up,” Klaus said. “I need to have a word with these two about boundaries.”

 

* * *

 

Wilfred’s room was down the hall from Klaus’s, also on the second floor. Dave still wasn’t accustomed to asking for help with something that used to be so simple. He never used to spare a thought for stairs, running up and down with no thought as to the challenges of verticality.

He slid down the banister one night after he fell asleep in Klaus’s bed and missed bed check. It didn’t work out like he had hoped. Getting his numb right leg over the railing was harder than it looked, and he would have fallen off the staircase had Klaus not been spotting him. When he finally reached the bottom with a great surge of pride, he realized that no, his wheelchair was still upstairs on the landing and he needed Klaus to bring it down for him. The rest of the night hadn’t gone well.

And yet, Doctor Rivers seemed certain that one of his colleagues at the National Hospital could give him his legs back. Optimism had never been kind to him in the past, so he refused to let himself imagine a future (a future with Klaus, his mind supplied) where he could walk and run and dance and do something _more_ than just sit there, useless, and never truly, actively, eagerly make love to the love of his life.

At least they had found each other.

He knocked on the door, hoping that he could at least help another pair find love. “Wilfred? It’s Dave.”

Wilfred opened the door, half dressed in his uniform, half in pajamas. “Hullo,” he said, opening the door wide enough to let Dave pass through. “Sorry for the mess. Packing isn’t moving along as I would have hoped.”

That was an understatement. It looked like his unit’s tent back in Vietnam; clothes were strewn about covering every surface. There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of socks. “I think you’re stressed, Wilfred.”

“Yes, I was thinking that.”

“What’s the worst that could happen if you just told him-“

A bout of machine gun fire cut them off, put-put-putting from the direction of the dining hall. Then came the screams, and then Five blinked into the room, barrelling into Wilfred’s chest. He knocked the little man over and left him staring in shock as a thirteen year old holding a rifle dusted himself off and charged towards the sound of the violent commotion, all while calling over his shoulder, “Get out of here, they’re coming for you!”

 

III.

 “Everyone down! Hands on your heads!” Arjay called, firing the gun into the ceiling once again.

Many of the patients, men innocently eating their dinner, dove for cover under the long tables of the dining hall. Some stayed where they were, surrendering wordlessly with their hands over their heads.

“Where is he?” Arjay glanced around the tables, trying to locate their target. Hà Liên walked between the tables looking for Dave, hands mercifully empty. One of her patients chanced a small smile. She ignored it. She wasn’t a nurse; it was time to give up the charade.

When she approached him, Doctor Rivers stood up from his seat, placing his spoon neatly on the table and letting his greatcoat drop off his shoulders onto the floor. It was so dramatic. Arjay hadn’t seen a dramatic coat drop like that since Obi-Wan Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith. Classic film.

“Sit down, doctor,” he said. Rivers didn’t listen. Typical doctor.

“Arjay, Hà Liên, what is the meaning behind this?”

“We need Katz.”

“Cats?” Rivers asked carefully.

“Dave Katz. He’s under arrest by order of the Commission and we have authorization to eliminate anyone who stands between us and our target.”

Hà Liên finished walking through the dining hall. “He’s not here, Arjay.”

Arjay shook his head. Nothing was ever easy. He passed the machine gun to Hà Liên and pulled a katana from under his pagri. Rivers pinched the bridge of his nose while titters of whispers sounded from the men cowering on the floor. Perhaps pointing a machine gun at traumatized soldiers was not good for their fragile mental health.

“I’ll go find him. Keep them here.”

Rivers walked forward until Hà Liên turned the gun on him, demanding he stop. He raised his hands in surrender and halted in front of her.

“Before you leave, please help me to understand. I’ve worked with the both of you for a number of months now, and you have become valued and trusted members of the Craiglockhart staff. You’ve done wonderful things for the men here, and you have helped myself and the other physicians tremendously.”

“We have our orders, doctor, just like you have yours.”

“My orders are to heal, Arjay. To help, not harm.”

Hà Liên interjected. “I don’t expect you to understand. The entire future depends on the death of one man.”

“How so?” Rivers’s fingers twitched. Hà Liên expected that he was aching to take notes right now.

“The future. Time. Everything that has to happen hinges on us killing Private Katz.”

“Certainly not the outcome of the war? Not the end to rationing? Will the death of one wounded man feed the starving women and children of Germany? Will it bring back the hundreds of thousands of dead?”

“It’s bigger than this. It’s bigger than any of you know.”

Rivers shook his head. “I would believe that is how you justify committing acts that go against your nature.”

Arjay and Hà Liên shared a quick glance. They thought it was subtle, but Rivers caught it.

“Ah, so you’ve thought about it?”

“No,” Hà Liên said quickly.

“Yes,” Arjay said, just as fast.

“Seriously, Arjay?” Hà Liên said. “What happened to getting the job done?”

“He has a point! Killing Dave Katz would be like kicking a puppy! Punching a Care Bear in the face! Torturing a Moomin! It’s heinous!”

Fuck, thought Hà Liên. Of course he had to pull the Moomin card. She fucking loved the Moomins.

“You’re not a killer, Hà Liên.” Rivers sounded so sure of himself. Hà Liên laughed.

“I think you’ll find that I am.”

“Both of you are helpers. Healers. I’ve seen your work over the months, and it has helped these men immeasurably.”

“Thanks, doctor,” Arjay said, flustered. Hà Liên could sense that she was in this alone. “Maybe he is. I’m not. I could never be.”

“But you _are_ ,” Rivers reiterated. “You are valued here.”

“It’s true!” A soldier sitting at one of the far tables stood up. “She made me tea at three in the morning after I had a nightmare!”

“And she pulled down the book I wanted from the top shelf in the library!” a short man said, waving said book in the air.

“She drove me into town so I could see my children!”

“She saved breakfast for me when I slept late after being up all night in pain!”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Rivers said, motioning them to return to their seats. “You see? You’ve already changed people’s lives for the better.”

“I was working undercover. I did my job.” She kept the gun trained on Rivers, just in case.

“Hà Liên, please. You’re frightening the men.”

“I don’t care. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for soldiers,” Hà Liên said.

Rivers, still facing the gun, removed his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. “Is that not who you are? You’ve been given a violent mission by a superior whom you obey without question. You do your duty, no matter what must be done.”

“It’s different.”

“How so?”

“The Commission saved me. I owe them everything. I owe them my life.”

“You do not. Your life is yours. It is your consciousness, your decisions, your very person. No one saved you, Hà Liên. You survived, and sometimes that in itself is extraordinary.”

 

IV.

Five had disappeared down the hall, but he was quickly replaced by Siegfried, who had knocked on the door like a civilized human being, and Klaus, who had kicked the door down screaming “Dave!” and flailing wildly into the room.

“What the hell’s going on in the dining room!?” Klaus yelled.

Siefried leaned against the doorframe, inspecting his nailbeds. “I assumed it was the music club.”

“It was machine gun fire,” Dave said.

Siegfried raised an eyebrow. “It sounded like a group of dotty men banging on pots and pans for the purpose of ‘therapy’.” He said ‘therapy’ in the same way one would say ‘vomit’.

“You’re kind of a stuffy bastard, aren’t you?” Klaus said. Wilfred cleared his throat.

“Well then, should we be on our way?”

“Yes, quite.”

They left the room in typical fashion, Siegfried striding out the door with Wilfred following behind, giddy. Dave shot him a look. He ignored it.

“You think he’ll do it?”

“I hope so. We should probably get out of here though. Your brother told me Hà Liên and Arjay were here to kill me.”

“Why didn’t you lead with that!?”

 

* * *

 

 

They (Klaus) decided to steal a car and drive out to the astronomy tower.

“I can kick them down the stairs if they come for us,” he said logically. But when they got there and were faced with three flights of spiral stairs, the logic of kicking assassins was forgotten.

“We really should have expected this,” Dave said.

“Why don’t you float, ya dingbat?” Renwick was sitting on the stairs, dangling his feet through the gaps in the metal banister. Dave’s quiet ‘holy shit’ was enough for Klaus to know that Dave could see him too.

“Hey buddy!” Dave said, waving. Renwick waved back excitedly.

“Thank Jesus I can finally talk to someone who isn’t this spooky wanker! I always liked you better than him.”

“Thanks, Donald,” Klaus said, judging the distance to the top of the tower. “Do you really think I could float Dave up there?”

Renwick snorted. “No.”

“Davey? You always believe in me.”

“Uhh…” Dave looked up to the observation deck. It was very high up. “Maybe we could go up the stairs. Slowly.”

“Good idea! I’ll float you up the stairs!”

“I meant like, a piggyback.”

“Are you cool if we try the floating first?”

“Sure,” Dave lied. He supposed his life was at stake anyways.

“Okay.” Klaus scrunched up his face in concentration and Dave felt himself lift off the ground. It felt like someone was holding him bridal style, lifting him up into the air. “Is it working?” Klaus asked. His eyes were still shut in concentration.

Then Renwick materialized, holding Dave like a baby, and started laughing so hard he dropped Dave back in the chair. Klaus tried to punch him, but he was no longer corporeal and he disappeared, fading into the afternoon light.

 

* * *

 

They ended up sitting in the tiny storage room at the base of the tower, huddled together in one of its dusty corners.

“I thought I could do it,” Klaus said.

Dave ran a hand through his hair and pulled him a little closer. “You can. You will.”

“Remember, back at the barn, when I said I’d keep you alive?”

“Vaguely. I think at that point I was too busy internally freaking out that you were choosing to talk to me than to listen all that closely.” Dave smiled, and rested his cheek on Klaus’s shoulder.

“You and me both, babe. You’re way out of my league.”

“Definitely not.”

“If we both think we’re inadequate does that mean we’re insecure or we’re perfect for each other?”

“I like to think it’s the latter.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“What were you going to say? About the barn?”

“Oh, right!” Klaus turned around so he was facing Dave, kneeling in front of him. “I just wanted to say that if we make it through this, I promise to always be there for you, as long as you’ll have me.”

Dave squeezed Klaus’s hands and pulled them into his chest, placing one over his heart. Klaus could feel the thumping of his heartbeat beneath his palm.

“I’ll follow you anywhere, darling. Anywhere in the world. Anywhere, any time.”

They both giggled, and smiled at each other like idiots in love, and pressed their foreheads together.

“Where do you want to go?”

“It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you.”

The sound of footsteps outside the storage room broke through the silence. Dave held his breath, praying that they would fade away up the stairs.

Then, the doorknob was turning.

“I love you,” Dave said as the door opened.

The light blinded him, and he raised an arm over his face to shield himself from whatever lay on the other side.

“It’s over,” Five said, crushing a paper coffee cup against the door.

 

V.

 

_November 4, 1917_

 

Hà Liên let Arjay make the phone call. She couldn’t handle The Historian this early in the morning. Instead, she wrote the note to the Commission.

_Mission failed._

They hadn’t, of course, but by the time the message was delivered, they would hopefully have caused enough chaos that the Commission would need Charles to sort out their mess and they would be able to slip away unnoticed.

The Historian didn’t give them much hope.

“You only have one chance to get this right, and it’s going to take some work.”

Arjay pulled out a feather quill and a piece of pink construction paper. “I’m ready.”

“Right,” The Historian started, chewing obnoxiously into the phone. “You need to crash a wedding.”

 

* * *

 

After four fake wedding invitations, three pinstripe suits, two forged army orders, and one stab wound to a captain’s leg, the plan was set in motion. All they had to do was lay low for two months and wait for Captain Robert Graves and Nancy Nicholson to get married, attend the wedding, make sure Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were there and in preferably close enough proximity to kiss, and make sure Charles did not interfere.

Then they would be able to disappear. Hà Liên had finally relented and let Arjay convince her to go live out their self-imposed exile in Arizona in the 90s, acting as paramedics on the US-Mexico border. But first, they were going to have to pull off their biggest job yet.

It was too big for two people. They were going to need backup.

 

VI

 

Klaus stopped dead in his tracks. Hà Liên and Arjay blocked the path in front of him.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no,” he said, backing up.

Neither of them made to come after him. Arjay grimaced.

“We need your help,” he said.

Klaus stopped and laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said.

“Hear us out, at least.”

“Why? You crazy bastards tried to kill my boyfriend!”

“Water under the bridge,” Hà Liên said. “We quit the Commission. We’re going to a wedding and we’re going to fuck up the time stream out of pure spite.”

Klaus couldn’t help himself. He clapped his hands together and said, “Oh, I _love_ weddings!”

 

* * *

 

Dave was a little harder to convince. He hadn’t quite gotten over the second assassination attempt and as such was unwilling to let Hà Liên and Arjay into his room, even after Arjay presented him with a small potted fern that had been sitting under his pagri for a couple months. (He watered all his plants on Sundays with the watering can that he also kept up there. It got knocked over on a mission once, but it had worked for his benefit because the mark had once pushed a man on his ship overboard and was terrified of being haunted by a drowned ghost. Oh, how he screamed.)

“Klaus, what the _fuck_ ,” he said. Klaus climbed into his bed and flopped over him.

“Don’t let this be our first fight! They just want to invite us to a wedding.”

“Darling, they tried to kill me. Twice.”

“But they didn’t!”

“Only because you saved me!”

Arjay interrupted. “Actually, the second time Dr. Rivers psychoanalysed us so hard we decided to quit our jobs and move to 1994.”

 “He’s good,” Dave said quietly.

“We have one last thing to do here before we go,” Hà Liên said. “Now, do you want to save your friend’s life or not?”

Klaus and Dave exchanged a look of confusion.

“We should have led with that,” Arjay said.

Hà Liên couldn’t stop herself from laughing quietly. They were really bad at saving people. They were going to be terrible paramedics. Still, it didn’t hurt to try. “So, are you two in? Wilfred Owen’s life depends on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I can't believe John Hughes ripped off Dave Katz when writing Dan Aykroyd's lines in The Great Outdoors re: hot dogs.
> 
> NEXT: Captain Robert Graves is getting married and the fate of the world depends on the guest list.


	11. Interlude E

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert Graves is getting married and the fate of the world depends on the guest list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what day it is but I do know that I edited this chapter on the plane and there's wifi in this airport so I'm going ahead and posting it. 
> 
> Now, this is an incredibly fictionalized account of a real wedding so I've created a short cast list for you of the authors that pop up at the wedding.
> 
> Robert Graves: War poet, “recovered homosexual”, the groom.  
> Nancy Nicholson: The bride, but more importantly a land girl, feminist, and all-around badass. After the war, she would ride her bicycle around and teach women how to use contraception at a time when it was illegal.  
> Siegfried Sassoon: Our stuffy bourgeois poet, fox-hunting man, and Wilfred Owen’s #1 fan.  
> Wilfred Owen: 5’5’’ poet who loves his mom and Siegfried, but mostly his mom.  
> Charles Scott Moncrieff: Agent Charles, who was a real life spy, is famous for his translation of Proust and for making Drama in the literary community. His biographer firmly states that he was in love with Owen.  
> Robbie Ross: Former boyfriend of Oscar Wilde and shit talker extraordinaire.  
> The Sitwells: Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell were three siblings who were pretty much the Kardashians of the literary circle. Charles Scott Moncrieff really hated them and they used to slam each other in the dedications of their books. Edith was especially notorious for her performance art where she wore outrageous outfits and recited her poetry. 
> 
> If one person reads a single war poem after this I will have done my job.

January 23, 1918

I.

The company, Klaus decided, was the best part of the wedding. He was surrounded by gay artists who, once The Parents left, all began acting like gay artists. Thus, he was able to hold Dave’s hand and sit on his lap as he wheeled them around Robert’s London home. There were an awful lot of people, and Robert had an awful lot of furniture, and Dave had a truly awful sense of humour sometimes and he often wheeled into furniture at top speed just to see if Klaus could keep his balance.

They truly were perfect for each other.

Klaus was mostly sober; he’d been trying his best to cut out drugs, not least because he’d been caught stealing morphine again and the new MO threatened to send him to an asylum. He also forced Klaus to wear his uniform by confiscating his swimsuit by claiming it was “obscene”. Major Bryce never minded. Klaus was pretty sure Major Bryce checked out his ass in his swimsuit at least once before he was sacked by the War Office after the chaotic hospital inspection that had the misfortune to be scheduled for the day Klaus let the chickens loose in the hospital.

Bryce’s departure had led to the resignation of most of the staff who were anywhere close to resembling “cool”, so both Dave’s and Klaus’s doctors quit in protest. Dr. Brock had the foresight to close Klaus’s case; he was dismissed from active duty on grounds of insanity. Dr. Brock had called him in for one last meeting right before he left. Klaus’s folder was empty.

“Your enlistment papers seem to be missing, Mr. Hargreeves,” he had said.

“I didn’t enlist,” Klaus had said. He wondered how long it would take Brock to notice he had Pecker II tucked inside his jacket.

“You have no conscription papers either.”

“I wasn’t conscripted.”

Brock sighed and fished a ten pound note out of his pocket. “Just take this and go, Mr. Hargreeves. And leave the chicken.”

Klaus took the money and pocketed it, but held fast to Pecker II. “She wants to come with me,” he said. Pecker II squawked and began flapping her wings wildly, escaping Klaus’s grasp and landing on Brock’s desk, where she immediately began pecking at his papers.

“Just go, please,” Dr. Brock said. His face was turning red and he looked like steam was about to erupt from his ears. Klaus silently excused himself and went back to Dave’s room where he planned on staying until they were both cleared.

The shift in management and staff had caused administrative chaos, but Dave’s transfer orders had finally come through. By the end of the month, he would be at the National Hospital in London and Klaus would be…

Well, Klaus thought, he would go wherever Dave went.

 

II.

Their plan had worked. Siegfried and Wilfred were in the corner of the library, chatting as they had whenever Hà Liên saw them together in the hospital. Siegfried was leaning casually against a bookshelf, drawling on about something while Wilfred looked at him with awe.

At least, she thought it was awe. It might have been Big Gay.

Arjay showed up beside her holding two glasses of champagne. She hoped it was better than the cake. The cake had looked like a true masterpiece until someone had opened the plaster cake-shaped cast and unveiled a pathetic little pastry that reinforced how little sugar two months’ rations got you. She took a sip.

Arjay nudged her shoulder and nodded towards the stairs. A girl descended at a jog, adjusting her Land Girl uniform and carrying a full bottle of champagne, which she stopped to take a swig from. Hà Liên couldn’t help but stare. She was liking this wedding.

 

III.

He hadn’t expected Siegfried to show up.

_I’m on a gas course in Ireland,_ he wrote. _My regrets to the future Mr and Mrs. Robert Graves._

But he was here, in Robert’s library, leaning against a bookshelf and wearing that blasted little smile that managed to mock him and make his heart ache at the same time. Even Dave had been invited, wheeling his wheelchair around while his strange friend sat on his lap and laughed every time Dave bumped into someone and apologized with _sorry ma’am, sorry sir, I’m in a wheelchair and it can’t be helped._ It wasn’t particularly funny, but Wilfred found himself watching as the pair dissolved into laughter in the hall outside. They looked as if the outside world had stopped existing.

“Are you listening?” Siegfried asked.

Wilfred blushed, caught red-handed. “Yes,” he said, before changing his mind. “No. I wasn’t.” Siegfried followed his eyes towards Klaus and Dave, who had entered the sitting room across the hall. Klaus had positioned Dave next to the sofa, and collapsed next to a handsome man with a moustache who looked concerned, as if he had lost a friend. Klaus leaned back, chugging champagne from the bottle and blocking the man from view. When he lowered it and bent down for Dave to whisper in his ear, the man was staring at Wilfred from across the hall.

Sass cleared his throat. “Don’t get involved with him, Will.”

Wilfred broke eye contact with the man across the hall and said automatically “who do you mean?”

Siegfried looked taken aback. “Moncrieff. You’re just his type. Young, talented…” he trailed off and looked away awkwardly.

Wilfred shrugged his shoulders and looked back at Moncrieff. He was quite handsome. Moncrieff smiled at Wilfred, and he smiled back.

“Hmph,” the other man said. “In love, I would say.”

Wilfred blushed. “No, I-“

But Siegfried wasn’t looking at him. He was distracted by his ex-roommate, who was now on the ground, legs tangled in his wheelchair because his boyfriend had leaped into his lap, began to kiss him passionately, and caused them both to topple over backwards. They were still kissing. Wilfred felt uncomfortable. Or jealous. He wasn’t sure which.

“It must be nice,” he said instead.

“To be a complete idiot?”

“To be a complete idiot in love.”

 

IV.

Charles was damn good at his job.

He reclined on the sofa in Graves’s parlour, arms akimbo and legs spread out in front of him. A leg and a half, maybe, he thought. He wasn’t sure how much was left of his injured leg after all the muscle wastage from being in a wheelchair for however many months. It may have been more shrapnel than leg at one point. He scowled at the truss that encaged his leg, and then glared at the crutches he had propped up against the arm of the sofa. He put his head back and sighed, audibly, but no one was around to hear it.

He was here for work, of course, though he had to admit that Graves was a decent bloke and his new wife had a certain quality about her that reminded him of a firecracker in a barrel of bank notes. He had looked forward to the cake most of all; after years of rationing, Charles could have used a big forkful of sugary icing, but the sugar tasted like it was cut with chalk. The champagne, however, was excellent, and he had appropriated a bottle that he had hidden between the couch cushions. He would drink it when his job was done.

The first orders had come a week ago, well after his last meeting with The Handler. _Cockblock Siegfried Sassoon,_ it said. He laughed while he read it. He hated Siegfried passionately, but he knew that Graves considered him one of his closest friends. Charles figured this meant that it was his job to breakup Siegfried and his new boytoy. His case manager clarified that when he received his last communiqué, which read _seduce Wilfred Owen._

 

V.

They eventually tired of causing wheelchair-bound chaos in Robert’s flat, and Dave wheeled himself and Klaus, still sitting on his lap, into the parlour. There was a moustached man manspreading across the entire sofa, and Klaus felt his eye twitch. The only thing worse than someone sitting alone in the middle of the sofa was someone taking up the entire sofa when all Klaus wanted to do was collapse (usually drunk) across it in his pants and wake up with cushion imprints tattooed across his face.

Dave rolled himself next to the couch and pushed Klaus over the armrest onto the sofa. Klaus landed with his head in the moustached manspreader’s lap. He hissed at him, partially out of habit and partially out of pain because his head banged against something hard hidden in the cushions. God, he hoped it wasn’t Moustache’s dick.

“Have you seen Mr. Owen around?” Moustache asked.

“Huh?” Klaus said. He sat up, determined he did not bang his head on Moustache’s dick, and took a chance, sticking his hand between the cushions.

Moustache shook his head, and began looking around, scrutinizing the faces of everyone passing by the sitting room. Klaus almost wept with joy when he pulled a bottle of champagne out of the sofa. The cork was pathetic compared to the shit he used to struggle with in Reginald’s study, so he pulled it out with his teeth and offered Dave the first swig.

“Always classy, babe,” Dave said, before tapping Klaus on the nose with the neck of the bottle and taking a long drink. He passed it to Klaus, who said, “I’ll show you classy,” and began chugging the champagne like a champion of alcoholism. Dave laughed and tugged on Klaus’s shirt collar to bring him closer. Klaus separated his mouth from the bottle and leaned his ear towards Dave.

“Remember that night in the astronomy tower when you asked me where I’d like to go?” Dave said quietly. Klaus nodded. He was still swooning from Dave’s answer and the prospect of a future together.

“I changed my mind. I want to go to the future. I think I’d like to marry you someday.”

If the pledge of commitment before had made him swoon, this made Klaus freak the fuck out. He vaulted over the armrest to kiss Dave with enough force that him, Dave, and the wheelchair crashed to the ground, wheels spinning in the air.

The wheels had stopped turning when someone finally pulled them apart.

 

VI. 

_Oh shit. He’s hot,_ Charles thought.

The young man with the centre parted hair and the sweet smile staring at Sassoon like he hung the moon could be none other than Wilfred Owen. He was younger than Charles had expected. Then again, they were all too young for this war. Even the weird guy who had fallen into his lap and hissed at him was probably all fucked up from the war. His friend had probably been blown up like Charles had. At least one of Charles’s legs still worked- the crutches were a pain and his leg gave him incredible amounts of pain, but at least he wasn’t stuck in a wheelchair anymore. Not that it appeared to matter to Weird Guy, who had just leapt on top of Wheelchair Guy and began kissing him like a man dying of thirst walking through a waterfall. Charles watched, amused, until he remembered his mission. Yes, it was time to cockblock his literary nemesis.

He looked around, but seemed to have lost sight of Sassoon. _Ah well_ , he thought. He may as well relax and enjoy the party. Working for the Commission was a great job, but it had come at a great cost. His leg twinged painfully. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to walk without a cane, and it was disappointing. He was never much of a dancer, but now that a waltz seemed as impossible as winning the bloody war, he found himself wistful: a dangerous mood to be in at a wedding. Next thing he knew, he would be piss-drunk on the sofa making out with one of the literary try-hards that Graves insisted on keeping company with. The two beside him had finally attracted enough attention to warrant being pulled apart, and they were presently making googly-eyes at each other and ignoring everyone else completely. Charles would still rather be here, looking like a third-wheel than stuck talking to someone like Edith, who was descending the stairs in all her six-foot-tall glory, pausing (probably for applause, the showy bitch) as she reached the bottom and posing. _A poseur whose poetry reads as a desperate attempt at social relevance_ he once wrote in an anonymous review. If she found out it was him who wrote it, she would probably break his good leg.

He did not afford himself the luxury of anonymity when he reviewed her youngest brother’s newest attempt at poetry. It was something truly terrible; a monument to the Sitwell family name that was both juvenile and pretentious. Apparently young Sacheverell was looking into writing travel literature. Charles ended his literary review with the opinion that Sacheverell take his book of poetry and travel to the bottom of Rhine. Charles chuckled quietly thinking about it. Working for the Commission was great, but he did much more torturing as a literary critic.

 

VII.

_Oh shit. She’s hot,_ Hà Liên thought. The woman who descended the stairs skipped over to the groom and kissed him, long and hard, to cheers of the other partygoers.

“Nancy!” a woman called in disgust. “Why must you insist on…”

She was abruptly cut off by the Land Girl. “It’s _my_ wedding, mother, not yours.”

Hà Liên pursed her lips. Of course. She didn’t recognize the bride out of her blue chequered wedding gown. But then, Arjay nudged her again.

_Oh shit. She’s hotter,_ Hà Liên thought. The woman descending the stairs looked practically alien in her aristocratic elegance amidst the clamour of the wedding party. Her short black hair was swept away from her long face. The look of disdain she wore clashed with her ostentatious dress- a patterned frock in floral silks that she accessorized with oversize jewellery. The sharpness of her long nose demanded attention to her face, though, and she made sure to convey her utter boredom through her dark eyes.

Hà Liên felt a twisting in her stomach that was less like butterflies and more like a hundred angry wasps that stung her with the urge to approach this woman.

She didn’t have to.

The woman parted the crowd as if it was butter and approached Hà Liên. Up close, Hà Liên realized how tall she was. Hà Liên had been told again and again that she was “unnaturally tall” but she only reached the other woman’s chin; her eye level was met with the thin, pale column of neck wrapped in jewels and lace.

“I have never seen you amongst these...” the woman gestured around at the surrounding crowd and paused, as if trying to find the proper insult before deciding on, “…people.”

Hà Liên swallowed, willing the dryness in her mouth to go away. “No,” she managed, before the pause became awkward. “I’m visiting with my partner.” She gestured at Arjay, who was reaching under his pagri and eagerly pulling out a book while speaking animatedly to a man who strongly resembled the woman in front of her.

“Partner?” the woman raised an eyebrow and looked down her nose at Arjay.

“Oh no,” Hà Liên said quickly. “We… we work together. Equal responsibilities. Equal pay. You know.” She realized then that it was 1918 and the other woman probably did _not_ know, but she was about to start rambling out of nerves.

“Ah, yes. My _partners_ are here as well.” She said “partners” as if the word was a dead rodent and she was dangling it by the tail as she threw it over the fence into her neighbour’s backyard. “My younger brother Osbert is talking to your friend, and our little brother Sacheverell is around somewhere. Most likely well into a bottle of whiskey by now, or attacking that ape, Moncrieff.”

Hà Liên could have laughed. Arjay perked up when he heard the name “Moncrieff” like a puppy, and he looked around excitedly.

“Not a fan of Charles?” Hà Liên asked. She was hopeful. Working with Arjay these past few months had made her resent Charles Moncrieff, only because she was so sick of Arjay talking about him.

“He insulted my brother’s poetry,” the woman said shortly. “He thinks I am an _attention seeker_ and refuses to admit that I am more of an artist than he will ever be.”

“I’ve worked with Charles before,” Hà Liên said, which was a half-truth. She and Arjay had, on one occasion, been victim to a Moncrieff-rant after Hà Liên had “attracted unnecessary attention” to the Commission by simply existing and having the apparent indecency to be Vietnamese. Going undercover on a Spanish treasure galleon 1715 was an extremely difficult task for an Asian woman, but, as she had explained again and again, she had fulfilled her orders and been covert about it. It took The Handler stepping in and putting Charles on an infiltration mission for him to finally stop sending her strongly worded letters at her desk. The gesture had been enough to sustain her years-long crush on The Handler. “I’ve also been on the receiving end of his wrath.”

“Are you a writer as well?” the woman asked.

Hà Liên laughed lightly and looked down at her feet. “No.”

The woman looked at her curiously. “Strange,” she said. “It seems you’re the only one who isn’t, here.”

Hà Liên huffed out of her nose. People were always pointing out how she was different from them. She shook her head and watched as a young man tripped over Moncrieff’s outstretched leg in the sitting room.

“Edith,” the woman said.

“Huh?” said Hà Liên, eloquently.

“My name. It has just occurred to me that you probably aren’t aware of who I am.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No,” said Edith, draping an arm on the tallest shelf of the bookcase they were standing in front of and leaning in closer to Hà Liên. “I find it strangely refreshing.”

“Hà Liên,” Hà Liên introduced herself. She didn’t move away from Edith’s closeness.

“Hà Liên,” she repeated. “That’s beautiful.”

 

 

VIII. 

There was a lot of homosexual activity at this wedding.

Wilfred found himself occupying the place between fear and longing, unsure which path to take. On one hand, the idea of making a move on Siegfried, who had become his friend and mentor, was absolutely terrifying. On the other, there was really no better place to act on his infatuation with the other man. Confused and suddenly finding himself alone in the parlour, Wilfred approached Klaus and Dave, hoping they would be able to offer some advice. It had taken three partygoers to pull Klaus off of Dave and to right Dave’s wheelchair after it had been enthusiastically knocked over in the throes of passion. They were just smiling and holding hands now, and for some reason, witnessing it made Wilfred feel like crying. Maybe he shouldn’t interrupt. But then:

“Wilfred!” called Dave, beckoning him closer. Klaus scooted closer to the armrest so Wilfred could sit between him and Moncrieff.

“Hello,” Wilfred said, in the little way that he always greeted others.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” Dave said, reaching across Klaus and putting a comforting hand on Wilfred’s knee. Wilfred smiled and looked down at his hands, folded on his lap.

“I do.”

Klaus, ever strange, was staring off into the middle distance. The dim lighting must have made him look more pale than usual, because Wilfred could swear his hands were glowing blue. Klaus frowned at the clock as if he was arguing with it in his mind. He must have won the argument, because he shrugged and turned to Wilfred.

“He’s afraid of losing you like he lost David.” Then Klaus’s lower lip began to tremble and he turned back to _his_ Dave, reaching out to cup his cheek and draw him in for a kiss.

“You won’t be getting anything else out of them for a while,” a voice said on his right. Moncrieff was looking past Wilfred to the re-entwined couple, amused. “And as for you, I wouldn’t waste my time on someone stuck on a ghost.”

“I just-“ Wilfred stopped and shook his head. “He’s-“

Moncrieff slid a hand onto Wilfred’s leg and stroked the contours of his knee. It felt nice.

“He doesn’t appreciate what he has. I’ve heard of you, of course. Owen the poet, they call you.”

“Oh,” Wilfred blushed. “I do. Write. I am a poet. Not published, but…”

“I would love to see your work. Would you care to have lunch with me? Tomorrow?”

“I-,” Wilfred could still feel himself blushing and he willed it away. “Yes.”

“Good,” Moncrieff smiled. His hand was travelling farther up Wilfred’s leg, but he didn’t find that he minded. He knew that Moncrieff had a point about Siegfried. Wilfred was aware that he was completely incapable of hiding his crush, and that his friend hadn’t done anything to even acknowledge it was telling. But still, Siegfried was here, and Wilfred couldn’t help but feel that this was his last chance.

“Excuse me, sir,” Wilfred said, making to stand.

“Charles,” Moncrieff corrected. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Poet?”

“I look forward to it,” Wilfred said, smiling genuinely at Charles a final time and going off to meet his fate.

His Fate was met in the entrance hall, where Siegfried was standing alone in front of the window. He was still staring at something outside when he said, “Ah, you’ve found me.”

“Were you hiding?”

The corner of Siegfried’s mouth turned up. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

Wilfred approached so that he was within an arm’s reach of his friend.

“I met Charles,” he said. He didn’t know why he led with that. Somehow, it seemed important.

“Of course. I presume you’ve accepted whatever invitation he has extended?”

“I have.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

“Do you…” Wilfred trailed off. This was the moment where everything converged. “Do you want to stop me?”

“I told you already. You’re his type.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means…” Siegfried ran a hand through his dark hair and leaned his forehead against the glass of the window. The cold January air had begun to freeze the corners of the windowpane and frost was beginning to gather on the sill.

“I can’t lose you,” Siegfried said as he pulled away from the window and stepped closer to Wilfred.

“You’ll lose me either way,” Wilfred whispered. He felt like his heart was going to tear his chest open.

“Don’t do this to me,” Siegfried said. He looked more vulnerable than Wilfred had ever seen him. The months they had together elevated Siegfried to a Messiah: untouchable, revenant, deserving of worship. But here, in Robert Graves’s entrance hall, a man stood before Wilfred, a man who was afraid and confused and too proud to ask for love.

And Wilfred, afraid and confused and too eager to give love finally broke and finally, _finally_ leaned forward and kissed him.

 

IX. 

“Ughhhhh,” someone said, before stumbling into Charles’s crutches and knocking them to the ground, out of reach.

“Excuse me?” Charles said. He raised an eyebrow. Scottish disdain usually straightened people out pretty quick.

The groaning young man just stumbled closer. He was headed straight for Charles’s bad leg. If he was a praying man, he would be on his knees (metaphorically- the shrapnel embedded in his knee wasn’t keen on a kneeling position. He found this out the hard way) begging God to save his leg.

God had abandoned him.

The man, who Charles was starting to recognize as looking startlingly, uncomfortably familiar to his literary arch-nemesis (one of them, anyways) tripped over his bad leg and crashed onto Charles’s lap. This was the second skinny homosexual to fall into his lap in the past hour, he thought wryly. In any other situation, he would be all over this, but neither had been the skinny homosexual he was hoping for. But he did have lunch plans with Wilfred for tomorrow, and he could carry out his mission then. It wouldn’t be particularly difficult, considering how truly lovely Wilfred was.

Charles hissed in pain when the man pressed on his bad knee to leverage himself into a crawling position. He was completely, utterly drunk, and Charles wondered if he was also drunk, because he was pretty sure Osbert Sitwell would never succumb to the indignity of being anywhere near Charles.

The real problem was that he could see Osbert talking to the Indian man in the corner (who just pulled a book out from under his turban?) while Edith, the gangly bitch, towered over another unnaturally tall woman. Oh, and now they were kissing. Perfect. This wedding was bullshit.

“You’re so mean,” the man slurred, collapsing against the armrest of the sofa and pointing at Charles.

Right. He had forgotten about the Other Sitwell. Most likely because he produced so little quality literary content.

“I wouldn’t be mean if you had any talent whatsoever,” Charles said.

“See! So. Mean.” Sacheverell said. The corners of his mouth turned down like he was about to cry. Oh God, he _was_ about to cry. Oh God, now he was crying. Charles wasn’t equipped for this. He came to have fun, talk shit with Robbie Ross, and flirt with Wilfred Owen.

Charles felt a rumbling under the seat and heard the tell-tale sound of a directive being sent from The Commission; he reached under the seat and removed the paper. _Cause drama within the literary community,_ it said. Charles rolled his eyes. Whoever was writing his orders these days had no idea who Charles was as a person. Still, if there was ever a literary powder keg, it was here, and the least talented Sitwell sibling was a fuse dangling temptingly in front of his face.

Perhaps it was time for Charles to graduate from drama to chaos.

“I’m not the only one who hates you, Sitwell,” he told the drunken man. “Sassoon told me your poetry was utter garbage. He’s found a new poet to mentor now.”

“But… but he’s our friend?”

“Is he really? Or is he just using you and your sister for free publicity? I’ll let you think on that,” Charles said, reaching for his crutches. When he sat up again, Edith was standing in front of him, arms crossed and looking furious.

“What the hell did you do to my little brother?” she said.

“He’s drunk and he started crying,” Charles stated. It was true, mostly.

“Were you trying to take advantage of him?”

Charles felt slightly ill at the thought. “Absolutely not.”

Edith narrowed her eyes. She was a very threatening woman. Charles pushed himself to standing and leaned on his crutches.

“Ask him. I only told him the truth.”

Charles made his exit. He did what he had to do in the subtle way he had mastered over the years. Edith held grudges like no one he had ever met before, and insulting her family was the best way to get shunned by her for decades. This would undoubtedly break their literary circle in half, with the Sitwells on one side and he, Sassoon, and Wilfred on the other. And with no other options, Wilfred would turn to him to publish his poetry instead of Edith, and she wouldn’t be able to offer him a writing position to keep him out of the War. Charles preserved the timeline at all costs. He had sacrificed too much to be removed from his current posting.

No, Wilfred Owen had to return to France, because Wilfred Owen had to die.

 

X. 

Edith was still screaming about Moncrieff when they left the wedding reception.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding,” Klaus said. “Are they all like that?”

“Emily’s wedding was a bit of a disaster. I drank a lot of champagne. I really only remember all our relatives asking me when it was my turn to walk down the aisle,” Dave said wryly. “Lots of cheek pinching old ladies telling me I was a handsome young man and they had a daughter who I would love.”

“I wasn’t invited to my sister’s wedding.”

“Oh.”

“At least I don’t think so. Might’ve been in prison.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Who? My siblings?”

“You don’t talk about them.”

“No, I don’t.”

Robert’s house was a fair walk from the flat they were staying in. It had taken everyone involved a considerable amount of effort to find them something on the ground floor. Accessibility clearly hadn’t been invented yet, and as such, Klaus knew he had at least another twenty minutes of pushing Dave down the uneven streets of Edwardian London. Their residence for the night had ended up being a large room with one bed and a musty cot, but it had a stove, a kettle, and a sink. He and Dave could sleep and make tea in their bedsit, which apparently were the only two necessities of life for the average Englishman. It was a shame that Uber hadn’t been invented yet. Klaus’s arms were tired.

“Are you all magic?” Dave asked in such drunken earnest that Klaus couldn’t help but laugh.

“I don’t think it’s magic.”

“It sounds like magic. Or are you mutants? Like the X-Men?”

“You know X-Men?”

“Emily used to buy them for her son. I read them after he fell asleep when I was babysitting.”

“You’ll be pleased to know that the X-Men are still going strong in the future.” Dave smiled.

“So, you and your family are magic.”

“Yeah. Well, not Vanya. She plays music, though. She’s good.”

“Emily plays the piano.”

“Is she good?”

“Not at all.” Dave laughed. “Who else?”

“Well,” Klaus said, deciding how best to go about telling Dave about his family. “The six of us- the magic ones- we were like a superhero team. Dad trained us. He was a monster. We were experiments to him, not children. He hated us, I think, for being human beings with human needs.”

“Klaus…”

Klaus shrugged. “He’s dead. I stole a bunch of his stuff and bought drugs with it.”

“It sounds like he deserves worse than that.”

“Hah,” Klaus laughed weakly. Talking about his family for the first time in so many months made him realize just how fucked up it was. Maybe the universe was making a case for him and Dave to stay in 1918.

“And then there’s Luther. He always tried to be the leader but really just sucked up to Dad the most. He’s super strong and his shoes are like, size 400.”

“So he’s like Beast.”

“Yes, but not smart. Then there’s Diego, who thinks he’s a real superhero and throws knives at everything. He’s alright. He drives me places. And Allison. She’s a movie star who can make people do whatever she says. Five you met, and Ben…

“I was closest with Ben. He was always reading. He probably could have been the smartest guy on the planet, but Dad… he didn’t see his potential. Made him do things he didn’t want to do.”

“Like he did to you?”

“Ben hated what we did. Luther and Diego did it for justice. Me and Allison loved the attention. Five… Five wanted to push himself. To get better. But Ben… there was nothing in it for Ben.”

“What can he do?”

“He had literal monsters inside him. They would explode out of his belly and rip things apart. Ben didn’t like to talk about it. I never asked.”

“I can see why you two are close.”

“Were. He died.”

“What happened?” Dave whispered. His heart hurt. He wished he could stand up and wrap Klaus up in his arms and protect him forever. He wished he could go to the future and punch Klaus’s dad in the face. Instead, he reached around and covered Klaus’s hand with his own.

“I’ve always been too scared to ask him. I see him,” Klaus clarified. “Not here, but in my time he’s there. He stays with me. This is the longest I’ve ever been without him since...”

“You miss him.”

“Yeah. A lot. I left the Academy- the house, when I was seventeen. I didn’t see him again. He died when we were twenty. I think…” his voice dropped to a whisper. “I think he asked Them to do it.”

“Who?”

“His… Horrors. I think he was sick of being used as a monster. I think he used Them to kill himself.”

“Christ,” Dave said. They finally arrived at the door to their bedsit. Klaus didn’t make a move to open the door.

“If I was there for him instead of doing whatever I did when I was high out of my mind, maybe then…”

“Let’s go inside and have some tea,” Dave suggested. He reached around and pulled the keys out of Klaus’s pocket.

“You’ve been here too long, Davey,” he said, smiling weakly. “Tea doesn’t fix everything.”

“No,” Dave admitted, “but it makes everything a little bit nicer.”

 

* * *

 

To anyone else, Klaus would never admit it. But this was Dave, so he confessed.

 “You were right about the tea.”

Dave nodded knowingly, cradling his cup of tea silently.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Doctor Rivers. And the new hospital. I don’t know how they’re going to help me.” Dave swirled the dregs of his tea around in the cup while Klaus stood up to get them ready for bed.

“I mean, Dr. Rivers is a smart guy,” Klaus said. “He literally psychoanalyzed those two villains so hard they ended up on our side.” Klaus paused to dig through Dave’s bag for his toothbrush. “The transfer is going to help you. Doc Rivers knew it was a brain thing all along, I bet.”

“Does the wheelchair bother you?”

“No,” he answered immediately.

“Because I don’t want to-“

“Baby,” Klaus said, holding Dave’s toothbrush hostage. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You.” He punctuated the last word by jabbing Dave in the chest with the end of his toothbrush. Dave nodded and rolled himself to the sink.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think your brother would stay with you if he blamed you for his death,” Dave said.

They completed the rest of their routine in silence.

Once they were smushed side-by-side in the tiny bed (they had decided to neglect the cot for its musty smell), Dave broke the silence.

“Are there a lot of ghosts?”

“There can be,” Klaus said, remembering the hotel room with all of Hazel and Cha-Cha’s victims.

“If you’re sober?”

Klaus nodded.

“Do you want to get sober?”

Klaus thought about it for a minute. “Not really.”

“Okay.”

“Not yet, I mean. They’re always so loud. And angry.”

“When you want to try, I’ll be there for you.”

“I don’t know why they all stay here. If I was a ghost, I’d go to the sun. It rains on the sun. Did you know that? It rains plasma, if that’s not the most hardcore thing you’ve ever heard.”

“Are we alone now?”

Klaus laughed. “I think we’re alone now,” he sing-songed, rolling onto his front and throwing a leg over Dave’s hips. “The beating of our hearts is the only sound.”

“I like that,” Dave said, running his hands up the back of Klaus’s thighs.

“I knew you’d love pop music.”

“You know it’s our last night together for a while.”

“I am very much aware of that.”

“I noticed you have a lot of lotion bottles in your bag.”

“I thought I’d give you the choice between Lucille Young’s Bust Massage and Anti-Gnat Lotion.”

Dave’s hands stilled and he looked at Klaus’s open bag on the floor in horror. “You’re joking.”

Klaus looked slightly ashamed for a moment, but said rather proudly, “They were the only two lotions I could find! No one cares about healthy soft skin or anal penetration in 1918!”

“Oh my Gosh,” Dave said, covering his eyes. Klaus pried his hands away and placed them on his own slim hips. He leaned down to whisper in Dave’s ear.

“So what’ll it be, baby? Gnats or titties?”

Dave sighed. “Which one smells better?”

Klaus leapt off the bed and retrieved the two glass bottles. He opened the Anti-Gnat Lotion first. It had a very large and detailed illustration of a gnat on the label.

“Definitely not,” Dave said, as soon as he caught a whiff. Klaus gagged and recapped the bottle. He grimaced and opened Lucille Young’s Bust Massage. It was slightly medicinal, but didn’t remind Dave near as much of gangrene as the other lotion. Klaus made to toss the Gnat Cream off the bed but Dave yelled “Wait!” and caught his elbow before he threw it. He took the bottle and gently tucked it under the bed where it couldn’t fall and break.

“If you broke that bottle, you would never get laid again,” Dave threatened.

“But since I didn’t?” Klaus said hopefully, returning to his position straddling Dave’s hips.

“C’mere,” Dave said, pulling him further up his body and reaching to kiss an exposed hipbone. “I wish I could do more.”

“Don’t.”

“I want to make love to you.”

“So do it.”

“Properly.”

“No such thing.”

“I want it to be good for you.”

“It’s good _because_ it’s you.”

“But-“

“Dave. Listen. You could spank me over your knee and I’d probably come. I could probably get off listening to you talk dirty. You could watch me touch myself and it would probably be the best orgasm of my life.”

“I don’t want to do any of those things.”

“All I’m saying is that lights off, missionary position, 1950s heterosexual sex is a very miniscule corner of sex.”

“So I’m-“ Dave gestured to his legs, traitors to his desire, “I’m okay?”

Klaus bent down to kiss him. “You’re perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies to the ghost of Sacheverell Sitwell who probably didn't actually cry at weddings but someone had to get bullied. 
> 
> Next: Assassins hitchhike, Klaus drives a car, and the Hargreeves siblings only see each other at weddings and funerals.


	12. Part VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part VI: A cure, a heist, and one more wedding.

_February 13 th, 1918_

“I can’t believe he just went like _zap zap zap_ and that was it! I thought he was full of it when he told me to stand up, but then he punched me in the knee and I went ‘ow’ and he then he yelled at me and I just… stood up! It was so cool, Klaus, you have no idea.”

Dave had one arm linked with Klaus’s and was using the other one to gesticulate wildly. He hopped a little bit when he walked, overjoyed at the overwhelming success of Doctor Yealland’s treatment.

“Did it hurt?” Klaus asked. Electrifying people didn’t sound as pleasant as Dave made it out to be.

“Nope! Just tingly.” He swept Klaus into his arms and led him in an uneven waltz down the hallway to the stairs. Klaus kept up the only way he knew how: he cheated. He let his feet hover a few inches off the ground and swayed his torso so it looked like he was dancing along.

“Just like how I feel when I’m with you,” Dave murmured, checking the corridor quickly before swooping Klaus into a dip and kissing him.

“You’re so sweet, darling,” Klaus said. “Incredibly cheesy, but sweet.”

“And you,” he said, booping Klaus’s nose fondly, “can’t dance.”

Dave dropped him, letting Klaus hover where he was.

“You’re getting better at that.”

“Practice makes perfect, baby. You know, we should practice something else…”

 “Dancing?” Dave was nearly giddy as he waltzed with himself down the hall, Klaus floating next to him.

“Yeah. I know a good one called the horizontal tango.”

Dave grinned. “We should probably find a place to sleep tonight first.”

“Nah, I saw a great dumpster out back that would be a great place for passionate lovemaking.”

They were both still giggling when they descended the stairs and made their way to the administration desk.

“Oh, Mr. Katz, we’re going to miss you!”

“Thanks Rosie.”

Rosie addressed Klaus. “You take care of him, you hear?”

“Yes ma’am,” Klaus said as she turned to gather Dave’s bag of meager belongings.

“Here you go, Mr. Katz. Your son dropped some things off for you.”

“My son?”

She handed him a big bag of civilian clothes and a black square briefcase with silver buckles.

 

* * *

 

Arjay sat on the side of the road, thumb out.

“What’s the point, Arjay? We can’t get to where we want to go by car.” Hà Liên was sitting on an ottoman Arjay pulled out his pagri, filing her nails. She had hastily cut them during the wedding with a pair of scissors and they really needed to be touched up.

“It’s worth a shot. Maybe we can go to France.”

“We’re on an island.”

A car was approaching in the distance, swerving all over the road.

“I bet they’ll give us a lift,” Arjay said.

“Do you want to die, Arjay? It looks like a child is driving that car.”

The car screeched to a halt and Dave stuck his head out the passenger window. “Hi,” he said. “Want a lift?”

 

* * *

 

Klaus was driving, which explained why the car was unable to maintain a straight path, or even a consistent direction.

“Look how good I am about staying on the left side, though!” he exclaimed as they went around a roundabout the wrong way.

“You know I think you’re amazing, baby, but maybe I should drive for a while?”

Klaus pulled over and switched spots with Dave.

Hà Liên was the first to notice. “You can walk?”

“Yeah!” Dave beamed. He stuck his feet up on the dash before he put the car in gear. “The doctor fixed me right up!  We thought we’d take a road trip before we headed back.”

“Back where?” Arjay asked.

“The future!” Dave exclaimed, at the same time Klaus said, “We don’t know yet.”

Klaus continued. “My brother dropped off a briefcase for us so I could go help with the apocalypse or whatever.”

Hà Liên and Arjay exchanged a look.

“You have a briefcase?” Arjay asked.

“Sure do.”

“Can you give us a lift?”

“Yeah, no problem. Where to?”

Arjay perked up. “Arizona in the 90s!”

“1990s,” Hà Liên clarified.

“We’re going to be paramedics!”

“Save lives instead of taking them!”

Dave was quiet in the driver’s seat. It didn’t escape Klaus’s notice.

“Is the most handsome man in the world doing okay?” Klaus asked him. Dave said nothing; he just pulled over at a little bistro.

“I need a minute.”

They all piled out of the car, and Hà Liên and Arjay left to go find a table, giving the other two some privacy. They may have been ruthless killing machines, but they knew how to read a room.

“Why do you want to stay so bad?”

“What?” Klaus blinked in surprise. “I thought you wanted to stay, too.”

Dave leaned against the wall of the building. It made Klaus think about the first night they met, way back at the barn. So many things had changed since then- the war, the hospitals, making friends, losing friends, falling in love...

Klaus leaned beside him, mimicking Dave’s position. “We’re safe here. There’s no impending apocalypse to avoid.”

“Didn’t you say that your family needs you to help them?”

“Nah, they’re just saying that.”

“But Klaus, you still _have_ a family. They accept you. They’d accept _us_.”

Klaus looked away. “They don’t have the highest opinion of me, with the drugs and all.”

“But you’re so much better now.”

“It won’t be good enough. It never is.”

“Fine, then, screw your family! I want to be with you, Klaus. I want to be with you somewhere where I don’t have to live like I’m dirty. I don’t want to keep how much I love you a secret. You said we could get _married_ in the future, for Lord’s sake. I never thought I could ever have that! I never thought I’d ever find anyone who wanted me like you do. I don’t care about flying cars or the apocalypse- I’ll learn how to fly a car and we’ll stop the apocalypse because that’s what you do. You make things better. You make everything better.”

“Is… is that a proposal?” Klaus’s voice was shaking bad enough that Dave thought he was holding back laughter, like he was joking. But he looked up, and his eyes were filled with emotion.

“I guess it is,” Dave said. He dropped to a knee, holding out a hand in the absence of a ring. “Klaus Hargreeves, will you come to the future, stop the apocalypse, and marry me?”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching for Dave’s hand. “Of course I will.”

 

_September 21, 2016_

The glass cases glittered before them, a land of opportunity. Hand in hand, Klaus and Dave walked into the Fancy Jewelry Store and began browsing up and down the rows of cases, Klaus occasionally pointing at something undeniably hideous, and Dave being shot down each time he found something “nice and subtle.” Klaus left a white smudge of fingerprints on the case they were gazing into now, caressing the glass as if it were a fluffy kitten.

“Those two,” he said. His voice was imbued with the finality of the situation. Dave held his breath.

He looked, and was pleasantly surprised. There were two gold wedding bands which clearly were not meant to go together, but were perfect together all the same. The first, which Dave couldn’t stop staring at, was simple and elegant: a black band wrapped over a gold one, allowing the gold to frame it like a solar eclipse. The other one, which had made Klaus scream quietly, was the inverse- the ring itself was black with an inlay of gold patterned damask. Klaus was holding his hand up to the glass. “Imagine that on my finger, Davey. Anyone who looks will know I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” Dave bit his lip and smiled, still not used to the praise Klaus would lavish on him when he least expected it.

“I’d be honoured to put that on your finger,” he said instead, and bent down to see if he could read the upside-down price tag.

“Good afternoon,” the sales associate said, approaching them. He smiled, a shark-like smile that one only sees in customer service when one is about to be ripped off, and said, “Come see the matching women’s set.”

Dave had been uncharacteristically ignoring the sales associate to stare a little bit longer into Klaus’s eyes, so he was given the rare opportunity to see them transform from soppy idiot in love eyes to crazed maniac eyes before Klaus whipped around and said, in his politest voice, “Excuse me?”

“The women’s rings are over here,” the sales associate repeated.

“Excuse us, one moment,” Klaus said, and he dragged Dave to the corner of the store. “Avenge Pecker,” he said in a dramatic whisper, and left Dave in the corner, confused, terrified, and slightly curious at what was about to happen.

Klaus walked up to the salesman until he was close enough to bump noses with him. “I don’t appreciate your homophobic attitude, _sir,”_ he said. Dave watched, riveted to the spot in fascination.

“I believe you’re mistaken, sir,” the salesman said calmly, as if he was used to outbursts and breakdowns of all sorts, which, as a retail employee, he was. “We welcome all clientele here at…”

“Your heteronormative comments have made me very uncomfortable. Can I speak to your manager?” Klaus’s voice was threatening. Dave didn’t know what heteronormative meant, but he had an idea. And then it clicked. Klaus was causing a scene on purpose to create a distraction. But a distraction for what?

Certainly not to steal the rings? Dave wasn’t a thief. The last time he’d stolen something had been… the chicken. Of course. Klaus _did_ expect him to steal the rings. Somehow, this would absolve Dave of the sin of sending the chicken to her death in Klaus’s eyes. It didn’t make any logical sense, Dave knew, but his heart shrugged and said _do it for love_ and Dave could never ignore the shitty advice his heart gave him.

Klaus was yelling now, jabbing a finger into the sales associate’s chest and accusing him of insinuating that he had tiny fingers. Dave walked casually up to the case which was unlocked ( _Klaus’s magic powers,_ he thought), opened it enough to slip his hand through, and grabbed the two rings. No alarm sounded, no cop cars showed up outside, and Klaus was still yelling. He slipped the rings into his pocket and reached across the case to put a hand on Klaus’s arm.

“Let’s go, sweetie,” he said.

“My _gay fiancé_ and I will take our _gay_ business elsewhere!” Klaus exclaimed, kicking one of the cases and leaving a dirty footprint on the glass. The salesman grimaced as they left the store. They received no friendly farewell.

 

_March 25, 2019_

Dave Katz never thought he’d be lucky enough to see Elvis Presley in person, let alone have him officiate his wedding. Klaus really wanted to get married inside the giant taco and made a solid case for it. In the end, Dave had Arjay to thank for supporting his lifelong dreamt to meet Elvis by siding against Klaus and Hà Liên, who was very enthusiastic about the irony of them getting hitched inside a taco.

But there they were, standing in front of The King himself while he pronounced them Mr. and Mr. Katz (Klaus had laughed at him when he asked if he wanted to keep his last name), told him he could kiss the groom, and thanked them very much when he did.

It was over so fast. They had done so much travelling in the past few days that Dave’s mind was blurry from either time travel or joy; he wasn’t sure which. They had to get (steal) the rings, then he had to find (steal) Klaus’s wedding present, then they had to go get married, and now, to keep up their side of the bargain, they’d leave the briefcase with Hà Liên and Arjay who would be off doing emergency rescue work in Arizona after the wedding reception.

Arjay finished signing his name on the witness line of the marriage certificate with a flourish.

“Done,” he said proudly. “Time to go home?”

Elvis was eating a sandwich behind the altar and reading over his lines for the next shotgun marriage he had to perform later in the day. He didn’t notice when Arjay opened the briefcase, and the group disappeared in a flash of blue light.

 

_March 27, 2019_

Pogo was having a pleasant cup of coffee in his room when he heard the front door fling open wildly and what sounded like a stampede of feet stumble around in the entrance hall. He certainly hoped there wasn’t another break-in. The last one destroyed the chandelier and of course, he was expected to clean it up. Pogo sighed. He was getting too old for this shit.

Arming himself casually with a shotgun, Pogo ascended the stairs and made his way up to the entrance hall. Everything seemed to be in order aside from the fallen chandelier. He ducked into the parlour and was met with a trail of shoes and outerwear. A vintage army uniform jacket was thrown over the coffee table, and four boots of all different sizes were scattered around the floor. Clad in a tartan kilt and green cut-off t-shirt, Klaus lay face down on the sofa snoring, left arm dangling over the edge with his fingers brushing the floor. The bare arm was scarred and discoloured. Pogo was sure it didn’t look like that yesterday. More suspiciously, there was a sleeping stranger tucked in behind Klaus with an arm possessively slung over his waist. He looked considerably more socially acceptable than any of Klaus’s previous… guests. Then, a cloud shifted and a ray of sunlight bounced off a mirror, pointing directly to Klaus’s left hand.

Pogo eyed the gold and black band that hugged Klaus’s left ring finger suspiciously. When he caught a glance of a matching one on the stranger’s ring finger, he felt his eyes bug out. Christ, what had the boy gotten himself into this time? Pogo massaged his temples before he blew an aneurysm. He needed a drink.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, hey, Luther! Watch this!” Klaus levitated in the air. “I’m taller than you!”

“Stop that!” Luther said, batting at Klaus like he was a pesky bumblebee.

“You’re just jealous because I’m tall _and_ married!”

“I’m really not.”

Luther looked pointedly over to Dave, who was learning how to throw knives from Diego. No one had told him what Diego’s power was, so he watched in awe as he hit the bullseye every time, not even questioning why the bullseye was the face of Sir Reginald Hargreeves in the family portrait.

“Wow, that’s amazing! You could go in the circus with an act like that!” Dave said earnestly. Diego puffed his chest up from the praise.

“Want to see who can hold their breath the longest?”

Before Dave could agree, Klaus interjected.

“Now, about our wedding…”

Diego stuck a knife into the wallpaper. “I still think it’s weird but yeah, whatever. I have a couple of freaks to kill to avenge the love of my life, but I might be able to pencil it in.”

“Do you even own a pencil?”

“Shut up, Luther. At least I can hold a pen without snapping it in half with my meat paws!”

Dave leaned into Klaus. “Is it always like this?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

The front door opened and Allison came in, shopping bags in hand. The bags were riddled with holes. “Why are there a bunch of chickens running loose in the front yard?”

“They don’t like their coop,” Dave explained.

“But… why are they here?” Allison asked.

“I got them for Klaus. For a wedding present.”

Klaus looked at Dave like he was Luther and Dave was the moon.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Dave whispered back.

“Oh, and what did Klaus get you? A crack pipe? A pink feather boa?” Diego asked. Klaus was taken aback by the cruelty in his words.

“It’s not personal, bro. He’s an emotionally stunted manchild who can’t grieve properly.” Ben had appeared behind him. Klaus went in for a hug automatically.

“Bennie! I missed you so much!”

“You were gone for two hours.”

“I was gone for seven months! I found a hubby! He was hanging out in 1917, so it was a bit of a trip but overall totally worth it.”

It was then that they realized that he was actually, physically hugging his brother.

“I’m not an emotionally stunted manchild!” Diego shouted.

“Holy shit,” Luther and Allison said at the same time.

“Holy shit,” Diego added.

“Hi,” Dave said nonchalantly.

“Hey. You married Klaus?” Ben asked.

“Yeah. Best decision I ever made.”

Ben nodded. “Cool. I’m Ben. I’m like Klaus’s conscience except I’m just his dead brother.”

Dave nodded. He seemed to be taking it in stride. At least, he was until Five fell out of a portal and onto the coffee table.

Five looked up. He was holding a coffee cup that was somehow still full.

“Thank God you’re back. The Apocalypse is in two days and-“

Allison cut him off. “Five, we have more important things to discuss.”

Five’s eyes bugged out of his head and he dropped his cup of coffee. “What could be more important than the end of the world?”

Klaus waved from the sofa.”My wedding!”

“No,” Five mumbled to himself. “No, no, no! You changed something!” He swung around to face Dave.

“Oh no, not again,” Dave groaned.

“You.” Five pointed at Dave, then spun back around and pointed at Klaus. “You two.”

They looked at each other, confused. Luther’s brow was furrowed so deeply it looked like he had no eyes. Diego was leaning against the wall pretending not to care, and Allison was looking at Five with an expression that said, ‘get on with it, you greasy little monkey.’

“Can’t you feel it?”

Everyone shook their heads. Five sighed in exasperation.

“Your wedding reception is going to avert the apocalypse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave's "miracle cure" wasn't an oddity among shell shock victims. There are great videos of patients before and after treatments up on British Pathé that are slightly disturbing but mostly amazing. 
> 
> Next: Three epilogues and a wedding reception


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four epilogues and another wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, it's over! This was a bit of a beast to wrap up because I wanted to balance a happy ending with historical accuracy. I have a couple quick notes before we start:
> 
> 1\. I love all of you who have been reading and commenting!
> 
> 2\. The sex scene in the last part might look familiar to some of you... I wrote the wedding dress fill on the kink meme and thought it fit quite nicely so I adapted it for the end of this story. This one has more chickens, so I like it better. Anyways, it's not plagiarism! It's just me upcycling smut!
> 
> 3\. Seriously, writing this has been incredibly self-indulgent and ridiculously fun. I can't state enough how pleasantly shocked I was to find out that other people were becoming invested in my characters and it really is the highest compliment.

_October 16, 1938_

_Margate, England._

 

“Honey, are you sure you don’t want help onto the train?” Marlene bent and kissed her husband on the forehead.

“Yes, Marlene. It’s been twenty years since I had legs, I know how to get onto a train,” Meakin groaned, but the look in his eyes was fond. Every day since their wedding he woke up beside her, and for that, he was the luckiest man in the world. “I love you, Marlene Meakin.”

“I love you too, Sid. Take care of yourself, love.”

He wheeled himself away, towards the platform.

 

* * *

 

Meakin hadn’t left the coast since he returned to England, delirious from fever and still bleeding from both legs. There was a military hospital set up in Dover, to which he was immediately admitted and rushed in for surgery. His legs were infected and he knew he was going to lose what was left of them, but he wondered if he would survive it. The last thing he remembered was the ether mask coming towards his face and himself screaming about gas.

When he woke up, there was a pale nurse with electric blue eyes sitting by his bed, reading a letter.

“’Allo,” she said in heavily accented English. “My name is Charlotte. You were my very first amputation patient so I am glad you survived.”

“Are you French?” he asked.

“Québécois,” she answered. “You serve with my fiancé, oui? Ernie? Ernie Wood?”

“He talks about you all the time,” Meakin said, nodding. He wondered if Marlene talked about him to her friends at the factory.

“I think Ernie was angry that I am a nurse.”

“He was. But we had a guy who made us see it differently. All the guys support you. We support women. We support Charlotte.”

“I like this man.”

“Yeah,” Meakin said, staring back at the ceiling. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

The train rumbled over the tracks through the countryside up to Birmingham and Meakin could feel his palms get sweaty. He’d avoided the countryside since he got back. It reminded him too much of France. Too much of Belgium. Too much of war, of suffering, of loss.

But Harker and Hughes had each answered his letter and they had agreed to meet in Birmingham to pay respects to the memory of their friends and pray for peace.

Germany had just invaded Czechoslovakia and Britain was preparing for war.

He arrived at the station a touch late, so he took a car to the pub they were set to meet at. He liked to wheel himself around new places and show the world that he wasn’t just another useless veteran, out of work and begging for change in front of the dole queue. He’d learned to paint portraits back in the hospital, and he’d been managing to supplement Marlene’s income and his pension enough for them to raise their three kids alright. It was nice to grow up by the seaside. You didn’t need a lot of money for toys when the beach was one giant sandbox, waiting to be explored.

Hughes stood up and waved when the driver unloaded his wheelchair from the boot of the car. He rolled himself into the pub, pushing aside the third chair at the table with Hughes and Harker.

“Sorry mate, the chair was a stupid lapse of judgement,” Hughes said, chewing on a toothpick. Middle age suited him. His youthful face looked jovial instead of awkward, and he had filled out in the shoulders (and in the gut, but after rationing and the Depression, who didn’t take the extra slice of pie after dinner?).

“S’okay, Hughes. Even I forget that I bring my own sometimes.”

“Afternoon,” Harker said. He looked mostly the same, but white streaked his black hair and moustache.

“Harker, good to see you.”

Harker nodded, and his stoic silence and wise thoughts brought back the ease between them that they had in the trenches. They talked about their lives, their families, and what they’ve been doing since being demobilized in 1919.

Harker and Hughes developed some sort of father-son co-dependency, not that Meakin would ever tell them that. They moved to Birmingham in flats sitting side by side. Harker was the best man at Hughes’s wedding, and Hughes and his wife were invited to all the Harker family reunions.

They talked about their children, and how Meakin’s oldest and Hughes’s oldest were spitting images of their fathers, down to the enthusiasm about going to war. It made him sick, Hughes said, to think about his son going through the same torture they did. He wanted to be a pilot. They made fun of Meakin for having the poor foresight of giving his youngest a German name, but they all agreed that ‘Klaus’ was a good name for a slightly eccentric fourteen-year-old.

They talked about their lost brothers. Meakin talked about Jimmy, dead from a gas attack near Messines, and how he honoured him by naming his first son James. They talked about Wood, and Meakin remembered meeting Charlotte when Wood was still alive. She was dead now, too, he learned, from the flu pandemic that swept across the world, and in a fit of depression he convinced his wife to name their daughter Charlotte after the woman who saved his life. They talked about Renwick and Patterson and Reid, who at least had the privilege of dying during a battle, and they talked about Chads, whose wound went septic and he died in a hospital after months of suffering. Hughes said he at least got to meet his son, born just before he finally succumbed to illness. And Harker brought up the elephant in the room; the disappearance of Hargreeves and Katz.

Hughes was friendly with one of the doctors at the National Hospital who said he tried to report them for going AWOL, but there were no records of either of them. There were no records in the War Office either. It seemed like they had both appeared and disappeared without a trace.

Until Meakin received a letter twenty years after they disappeared. He was going to need another drink for this.

“So,” Meakin said once the second round of drinks were ordered and placed in front of them. “You got the letter too?”

“I still don’t know if it’s a prank or not,” Hughes said. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket. It was a gold envelope with a white and pink card tucked inside.

It was a wedding invitation, inviting them to the marriage of a Mr. Hargreeves and Mr. Katz on March 28, 2019.

“It must be. There’s no way-“

A sunburst of blue light exploded behind the bar and a kid in a school uniform walked out, holding a briefcase. He looked incredibly bored, like suddenly appearing in a burst of supernatural light was something he did all the time.

“Are you sad remains of the North Staffordshire Regiment?” he asked.

“I’m not sad,” Hughes offered.

“And we’re what’s left of the 1st Division as it was in 1917. Not the _only_ survivors, God forbid,” Meakin added.

“Great. Don’t care. Let’s go.”

“Where?” Harker said, asking the real questions.

“To the wedding,” the kid said, rolling his eyes. “You got the invitations. Christ, if I knew it was going to be this hard to get you guys to come I would have traded jobs with Arjay.”

The three veterans exchanged a look. Harker shrugged, and they followed the boy into the light.

 

 

_March 28, 2019_

_The Umbrella Academy’s Backyard_

If anyone noticed three middle-aged men dressed in worn clothes from the 1930s, no one said anything, not even when they greeted the grooms with an array of outdated slang, punches to the shoulder, and loud catcalling whenever Klaus and Dave came into contact with each other. Vanya noticed, but she wasn’t surprised no one else did.

All her siblings were occupied.

Five was deep in conversation with Luther and Arjay, both of whom were frowning and looking incredibly confused as he explained the saved timeline. Allison had abandoned her glass of wine on the banquet table to dance with Ben’s ghost, who was breaking it down on the lawn. An empty glass sat next to the lipstick-stained one still half full of white wine- Diego had whisked its owner away as soon as he saw her, gaping silently while Five and Allison exchanged a knowing look.

Vanya suspected Diego and Patch were very busy having passionate make-up sex in Diego’s room and vowed to stay outside until she saw her brother reappear. She made a note to ask Allison how she and Five brought her back from the dead later, if the wedding didn’t cause another Great Family Fallout.

“Had enough yet?” Leonard asked, draping his jacket over her shoulders. The hem came down to her thighs. She felt like she was drowning in it.

“I want to stay a little bit longer,” Vanya said. It wasn’t until Leonard frowned that Vanya realized she had been smiling. Klaus was trying to herd his chickens into their newly renovated coop with little success. The train of his wedding dress wasn’t helping. One of the chickens, a bloodthirsty brown hen, had made itself comfortable on the train and was enjoying the ride around the yard.

“Pecker Two!” Klaus yelled, spinning around and getting tangled in his own dress as he turned to face the chicken.

“She prefers Pecker the Second!” Dave called from the kitchen window.

“Dave! Save me!”

“Have you been outwitted by a chicken?”

Klaus telekinetically plucked a flower from the garden and floated it over to the open window. “If you help me I’ll marry you.”

“We’re already married.”

Klaus smirked, floating up far enough to untangle his legs from the white fabric. “I know. I just like hearing you say it.”

“No one’s even paying attention to you,” Leonard said, slipping an arm around Vanya’s shoulders. “Except me.”

The little blossoms of happiness in Vanya’s heart over her brother’s happiness withered with her boyfriend’s words. He was right. It was supposed to be a party, but everyone was still too busy to include her. Maybe she should leave.

“You’re not leaving yet, are you?”

The voice behind her was soft, but it made her jump. Turning, she looked up at the other woman. She was almost as tall as Luther, but slender, narrow-hipped and elegant.

“I, uh- I haven’t met you yet,” Vanya stuttered. She shook Leonard’s arm off.

“Hà Liên,” the other woman introduced herself. “I’m a friend of your brother. And your brother-in-law. And your other brother.”

“I’m Vanya. The normal one,” she said, extending a hand.

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” Hà Liên said. Leonard stiffened beside her. “Klaus told me you were a talented musician, but he failed to mention how stunning you are.”

Vanya could feel herself blush, not just in her cheeks and her neck, but all over her body. She could feel her heart rate increase, and with it she could hear the sound of her heart beat over the noise of the chickens and the party.

She swore she could feel the ground shake, and through the pounding in her ears she could hear the chickens squawking in fear and waddling into their coop. Leonard put a hand on her shoulder, but the ground shook harder.

“Get off, curly boy,” Hà Liên snapped, pushing him out of the way and replacing his hand on Vanya’s shoulder with her own. It felt warm.

It felt safe.

The shaking stopped.

“Oi mate, I thought the earth rattling wasn’t supposed to happen until the honeymoon!” Meakin called out, pointing at the newlyweds and wiggling his tongue in a decidedly naughty way.

“Is everyone okay?” Luther asked, climbing out from under the inflatable shelter Arjay had supplied.

But Klaus was too dumbstruck to answer, pointing at the colourful structure that Luther, Five and Arjay had taken shelter under.

“Who the fuck ordered a bouncy castle and forgot to tell me?”

Before Arjay could answer that it was his portable earthquake shelter, Klaus grabbed Dave’s hand, kicked off his shoes, and they leapt on top of the bouncy castle with infectious vigour.

Vanya was about to start for the castle when Leonard grabbed her hand, stopping her.

“Vanya, we need to talk.”

Hà Liên was a step in front of her, and turned. “Come jump with me, Miss Hargreeves. There’s nothing quite like a bouncy castle shared with friends, family, and,” she paused, eyeing Leonard up and down in an attempt at Scottish Disdain that she learned from Charles, “lovers.”

Vanya gulped, and turned back to Leonard.

“Leonard, I… need to rethink some things. I’ll call you tomorrow, alright. I need to be with my family right now. And my… friends,” she added, looking back at Hà Liên.

“Call me tonight instead and it’s a deal,” he said.

Vanya agreed, absentmindedly. Her thoughts were already occupied with black, shiny hair pulled back in a chignon, with long legs in cropped trousers, and the feel of long, warm fingers stroking over her shoulder.

 

_November 5, 1929_

_London, England_

 

Siegfried sat on the chair, smoking his fourth cigarette of the evening. He stared out of the third story window, watching the sun set over the London skyline. His fingers traced the scar that skimmed across the top of his scalp, as he often did. He had gotten lucky, he supposed. Shot _on_ the head rather than _in_ the head. It was a shame not everyone was so lucky.

“Everything alright, darling?” Ivor emerged from the bedroom wearing a robe that would look garish on anyone but him. He looked as elegant and entrancing as he had when Siegfried first met him. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray balanced on the arm of Siegfried’s chair. Ivor moved the ashtray and draped himself over the chair.

“It would have been his thirtieth birthday today.”

“Ah,” Ivor said. “David?”

Siegfried exhaled sharply, remembering the evening his Craiglockhart roommate’s strange partner had somehow made David appear before him. At the time, he hadn’t realized what a gift it had been, to see his lost love one last time. And yet, he was glad. David’s last words to him, to move on and accept love, had felt a heavy burden since the end of the war. He hadn’t allowed himself to return love. Even now, married to a woman he felt no attraction to and in the throes of an affair with one of the most beautiful creatures to grace God’s green earth, he felt a deep regret at letting Wilfred walk away, that one sunny afternoon he had paid Siegfried a visit. It seems like one day he left Siegfried alone in the garden, and the next he was writing from France. And then, nothing. It was months later that he considered writing to Wilfred’s mother.

“Wilfred. Owen. The poet,” Siegfried answered. “I think it was my duty to save him.”

“It’s no one’s job, dear. You published him, did you not?”

“I did. His poetry deserves to be read. I won’t let him remain unappreciated.”

“Surely he wasn’t _entirely_ unappreciated?” Siegfried did not miss the note of suggestion in Ivor’s voice.

“It wasn’t like that, with him. Now, I wish it was.” Siegfried put his head in his hands, and let himself relax into the chair as Ivor rubbed his back in the comforting way he kept hidden from the public. He was full of surprises, Siegfried was finding.

“Maybe that would have convinced him to stay,” he added.

“It’s not your fault he went back, darling. What do you think he’d do? Desert?”

“I was going to ask a favour of Edith. She could have used her connections to get him on home duty. Writing. But then Moncreiff ruined it and the damn man went behind my back and seduced him.”

“Ah, there it is. The jealousy.” Ivor smirked and slid in behind Siegfried, still rubbing his shoulders. He leaned his chin on Siegfried’s shoulder. “You have to forgive yourself. For your choice, and for his. You can’t resurrect a lost love, Siegfried.”

 

 

_June 16, 1965_

_Edinburgh, Scotland_

 

Gavin knew what his grandkids thought of him.

_Granddad’s gone a bit off in his old age._

_I don’t want to go to granddad’s, it’s boring!_

_Granddad smells!_

_His stories are so boring!_

His grandchildren were ungrateful little twerps, but he hoped one day they could learn to love him like he loved them. He watched his daughter pull up in her fancy new automobile, wondering if this would be the day.

 

* * *

 

The smell of smoke drifted down the hall from the guest bedroom. Grumbling and stretching out his bad hip, Gavin limped down the hall, cane tapping along the tile.

“I can’t believe you! You just set the papers on fire!”

“If you knew how to roll a joint we wouldn’t have this problem, would we?”

“Clearly you don’t know how either since you just burnt all the rolling papers!”

His grandkids were bickering. They were always bickering. It must be a sibling thing.

“What’s going on here?” Gavin said gruffly.

His grandkids held their hands behind their backs sheepishly. “We were playing with fire, granddad,” Elsie said.

“Back in my day, when we wanted to light something on fire-“ he began, but his grandkids groaned.

“Not another dumb story, grandpa!”

“Tell me what you’re really up to and I won’t tell you about the time I flew the Dieppe mission.”

“Fine!” Callum exclaimed, holding up a small bag of green botanicals. “We were trying to smoke some pot because your house is boring.”

Elsie shouldered her brother heavily. “But then Callum set all our rolling papers on fire because he’s stupid.”

Gavin thought for a moment. He could feel something niggling at the back of his mind. Something about the war. The first war. He was a boy scout once, back in 1917, and there was a strange American who taught him something strange…

“Let me show you kids something,” he said, turning and heading towards the kitchen. “Come on, it’s not an old man thing, I promise.”

“Now, we’re going to need an apple and a spoon…”

When their parents came to pick them up the next morning, they were surprised to find Elsie and Callum hugging their granddad goodbye and promising to come back soon. The drive home was blissfully silent, filled only with the sound of two teenagers eating their way through an entire bag of apples.

 

 

_February 28, 1930._

_Rome, Italy_.

 

Italy was lovely this time of year.

It was a shame the Commission had finally caught up to him. Charles wanted to enjoy the view a little bit longer. The sun was setting over the canals, mixing reds and pinks with blues and blacks and Charles shuddered, seeing only pinks and reds and blacks covered in mud and the blue sky innocently staring down at the suffering below.

“You’re a traitor,” his assassin said from behind him. Charles couldn’t place the voice. There were so many killers, these days.

Including him.

He had tried so hard to keep Wilfred at home, but in the end he made the decision to go back, to try to earn a medal and the prestige that would allow him to be taken seriously as a voice of the war. Charles had done nothing to distill this idea. No, he had encouraged it.

He held himself responsible for Wilfred’s death. Sassoon and Graves and Sitwell held him responsible, too. It made him sick.

He found out later that the cancer may have also had something to do with the sickness, but he was a dead man long before the doctor found the growing blackness inside of him.

He’d failed his mission by trying everything in his power to get his young friend a posting at home, and he’d failed Wilfred by failing at that. It only took months for the war to claim his life. They awarded him a Victoria Cross, in the end.

Posthumously.

Just like his promotion, which came days after his death as the bells rang for the armistice. Sassoon told him Mrs. Owen received the telegram while the bells were still ringing.

After that, he threw himself into his translation work until he was living and breathing in French and the separation from the literary community in London was enough that he could finally sleep a few hours each night.

He wouldn’t have to worry about his health anymore, at least.

“Come on then, lad. Take your shot,” he said to the assassin. “Try to be a better shot than the Germans were, won’t you?”

 

 

_March 29, 2019. Earlier, and then Later._

It was a stunning thing, all lace and satin with a full skirt and an off shoulder neckline, but it paled in comparison to what a vision Klaus was when he walked down the aisle.

He was wearing a pair of beat up Doc Martens with it and carrying a bouquet of flowers, flanked by Grace on one side and Diego on the other. Dave stood under the wedding arch in his rented tux under the blue sky of summer in the backyard of the academy while the birds sang Klaus’s procession towards him. He couldn’t do anything but stare.

They were already married, of course, but getting married by Elvis (an impersonator, Dave found out later with great disappointment) lacked a certain romanticism. Even having the real Elvis marry them would pale in comparison to this moment.

Klaus was floating down the aisle, sometimes literally, when his feet left the ground and he began to levitate and Diego had to tug on his arm to bring him back down. He hadn’t quite learned to control the levitation when his mood fluctuated, and Klaus would find himself rising through the air when he was particularly happy.

Hà Liên told him later that they couldn’t pull him down when she and Allison took him wedding dress shopping.

“I demand a dress,” he had informed Dave their first night back, after his siblings had gone off to bed and Five had zapped away to sneak into the Commission and confirm his theory that their wedding did, indeed, avert the apocalypse. “A Pnina. With a giant skirt.”

Dave didn’t know what a Pnina was but the idea of Klaus wearing a dress was somehow more exciting than the kilt he was wearing now. It rode up to his thighs when he crossed his legs and Dave couldn’t resist stroking his hands over the pale skin.

“I’d like that,” Dave said. He’d like anything, so long as Klaus was in it. The soft bawk-ing of Klaus’s chickens in the yard made the noise from the city a distant thought.

“What about a honeymoon?”

“Shouldn’t we stick around and make sure the world doesn’t end first?”

Klaus tossed his bare legs over Dave’s lap. “That would be the responsible thing to do, yes.”

“Don’t forget to take me with you,” Ben said, appearing and leaning over the couch. “I’m sick of this place.”

“How does Bermuda sound?” Dave said. He read about it in a pamphlet once. Sure, it was a pamphlet about the supernatural forces that crashed ships, but it still sounded nice.

“Bermuda…” Klaus mused. “I like it.”

Dave pressed their foreheads together. “I’d like anywhere with you.”

Klaus glowed under the praise and Dave felt himself lift off the couch, air swirling around them as Klaus kissed him.

 

* * *

 

And that was how they got here, on the other side of the ceremony and reception, matching wedding rings glittering on their fourth fingers, full of food and sparkling soda water in place of champagne and so in love Dave thought his chest might explode. Klaus’s siblings surprised them by paying for the honeymoon, starting with a night in a five star hotel in town so they wouldn’t have to spend their wedding night in Klaus’s childhood room.

Dave shut the door gently behind him. Klaus was already pulling off his boots, tossing them carelessly into the corner of the honeymoon suite and twirling around barefoot on the shiny floor.

“You look like a Disney princess,” Dave said. He removed his tuxedo jacket and hung it up in the wardrobe. He could see Klaus approach him from behind in the mirror, and waited for him to slide his arms around his waist and tuck his head into Dave’s neck.

“You flirting with me?”

“How could I not flirt with the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen?”

Klaus smirked and held up his left hand. “Watch yourself, big boy. I’m married, you know.”

Dave raised an eyebrow, playing along. “And does your husband take good care of you?”

Klaus began to unbutton Dave’s shirt slowly, smoothing his hands over the crisp white undershirt, thumbs brushing against Dave’s nipples. He leaned in to kiss Dave’s ear and said lowly, “He takes the best care of me. But tonight, I’m gonna take care of him.”

Dave felt the most delicious chill shudder up his spine, and he spun around, catching Klaus by the waist and sweeping him into a kiss that would make a Disney princess swoon. It only got more heated as Klaus steered him backwards towards the bed, pushing the shirt off his shoulders and ripping the undershirt over his head. He stopped for a minute, running his hands over the smooth, muscled expanse of Dave’s back and sucking a mark into Dave’s neck in the spot that drove him wild.

“I want everyone to know you’re mine,” he said, laving his tongue over the mark and reaching down for Dave’s belt.

“I’ll shout it from the rooftops, darling. I couldn’t be happier.”

Klaus giggled, a soft happy laugh that warmed Dave’s heart and make him overflow with love for his new husband. Klaus turned around, exposing the lace-up back of his wedding dress to Dave.

“Unlace me?” he asked.

“No.” Dave said, kissing a line down the back of Klaus’s neck to where the fabric of the dress began. Klaus turned around, puzzled, and Dave slid his hands down the silky smooth satin fabric. “It’s our wedding night, baby. I can’t get enough of you in that dress.”

“Is this a fetish of yours, Davey? I never knew!” Klaus pulled Dave’s belt through the loops and tossed it over his shoulder.

“You could be wearing a potato sack for all I care, sweetheart, but you look incredible. I’ve been thinking about this moment all day. We’re finally alone, and you’re mine and I’m yours and seeing you wrapped up in silk and satin and lace just for me… I’m crazy about you, Mr. Katz.”

Klaus kissed him long and hard, prying his mouth open with his hot tongue and Dave met it with his, tongues sliding against each other and hands roaming over Dave’s skin and Klaus’s dress and Klaus backed Dave up against the edge of the bed and pushed him back. Dave toppled backwards gladly, scooting backwards to the headboard as Klaus followed. Dave toed his shoes off, and Klaus pushed them off the edge of the bed, followed by his socks and finally, his pants. Klaus was fully dressed above him, satin skirt brushing against the bare skin of his thighs.

“I still want you to unwrap me,” Klaus said, straddling Dave’s chest and draping the skirt over his face.

Inside the skirt, Dave’s eyes followed the line of Klaus’s thin legs up to the lace garter wrapped around one pale thigh, and up further to the white lace panties that did nothing to constrain his erection. They had frills and bows around the legs and the lace was soft when Dave nuzzled his nose into the wet spot left by Klaus’s cock. He made to move his hands up and under the skirt, but Klaus leaned forward and held his hands down on the bed.

“Nuh uh,” he said. “No hands.” So Dave mouthed at the hot cock in front of him through the lace, tracing the length of it with his mouth until his mouth was watering and he needed more. He carefully latched his teeth onto the edge of the panties and pulled them down, just far enough to free Klaus’s erection, which he took into his mouth with a satisfied hum. It was getting hot underneath the skirt, but Dave paid it no attention. He was fully occupied with the ample amount of cock in his mouth. He let his teeth graze over the foreskin, tugging it back as he took Klaus deeper in his mouth.

“Mmm, your mouth feels amazing, baby,” Klaus said above him. His voice was muffled through the layers of fabric. Dave moaned around a mouthful of cock and let his jaw go slack and throat relax, taking Klaus all the way in and holding him there, hot and throbbing, before pulling back and licking at the slit. The cool sensation of fresh air surrounded him- Klaus had gathered the front of the skirt in his arms and gazed down at Dave lovingly. Dave took the head of his cock back in his mouth and smiled around it, eyes shining with joy. He’d gone too long without seeing his husband’s face. It had only been a minute and he already missed the sight of him.

“I need to see you do that again,” Klaus said, and Dave couldn’t deny him. He took Klaus’s cock back into his mouth all the way to the base and looked up at his lover’s face through his eyelashes. He loved having his mouth filled and seeing the pleasure across Klaus’s face. Dave’s cock ached, and he ground up slowly into the air. The head of his cock caught on the train of Klaus’s dress and he moaned, mouth stuffed, around Klaus’s cock. Klaus shuddered and reached down with one hand to caress Dave’s face.

“Come on, baby. Finish me off so I can ride you for the rest of the night.” The image made Dave’s mind go blank and he complied, pulling back and sucking. Klaus released the hold on his wrists, and his hands went immediately to Klaus’s ass, grasping and groping him through his wedding dress and pulling his hips into his face. Klaus thrust into his lover’s mouth, carefully at first and then built up speed as Dave groaned and bucked underneath him. He leaned against the headboard, dropping the full skirt over Dave’s head again and came, pulsing into Dave’s mouth as he swallowed around him.

Dave held his softening cock on his tongue until Klaus pulled away, flopping back on the bed and breathing heavily.

“So,” Dave said, swiping the come trailing out the corner of his mouth with his thumb and licking it up, “does your husband take good care of you?”

Klaus smiled happily and crawled back up Dave’s body to kiss him, wet and dirty. He could taste his come on Dave’s tongue. “The best,” he said.

“I love you,” Dave said, grasping Klaus’s ass through the dress again.

“I love you too.” Klaus straddled his hips and let Dave’s still-clothed cock rub against his entrance. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Dave tried to sit up, to reach for his overnight bag and take out the lube and the condoms but Klaus pushed him back down. “You got a little distracted under there last time, babe,” and he turned around so his ass was in Dave’s face. Dave rucked up the dress and found the lace panties again, stretched over the curves of his husband’s beautiful backside. He kissed each cheek.

“A little bit further, darling,” Klaus said. He had pushed Dave’s underwear down around his knees and was holding Dave’s cock with one hand, close enough to his mouth that Dave could feel his hot breath. He pulled the lace aside and found an elegant crystal buttplug embedded in his lover’s hole.

“Oh,” he said, stunned. “How long have you-“

“Just since the end of the reception,” Klaus said. He shrugged, and offered a small lick to the head of Dave’s cock. “I didn’t want to wait.”

Dave laughed and pulled at the base of the plug, enough to move but not enough to slide out. “I can’t handle this, Klaus. I think I’m in heaven or something.”

“Stop worrying about being in heaven and start worrying about getting in me.”

Dave couldn’t argue with that. He pulled the plug out and kissed Klaus’s slick, open hole. Klaus moaned, but pulled himself away. “Later,” he said.

Dave pulled Klaus into him, letting him mould their bodies together. He kissed his lover’s forehead and whispered “we have the rest of our lives,” before Klaus pulled away and lifted his dress up, straddling Dave’s thighs and letting his cock tease the entrance to his hole. Klaus shifted, gathering the dress with one arm and lining himself up with the other hand. He sank down slowly, coating Dave’s cock in the lube that he must have filled himself with before putting the plug in, closing his eyes as he bottomed out. The heat of Klaus around him was incredible.

Klaus lifted himself up on his knees and slammed back down with a yelp that made Dave grab at his hand and ask if he was okay. Klaus fell forward, one hand on Dave’s chest and the other on the bed beside him and kissed him in lieu of answering. He began to rock himself back and forth, impaling himself on Dave’s cock as the great folds of satin fell from his arms and onto Dave’s stomach. Klaus mewled when Dave took his hips in his hands and began thrusting upwards, meeting him at the bottom of every thrust. He whimpered when he shifted, telling Dave to stay still while he ground against him to find that perfect spot that made pleasure ignite behind his eyes. When he was close, he pulled Dave to him so he was sitting in his lap and rode him wildly, raising himself and slamming back down and letting Dave suck on his neck and on his earlobe while the wedding dress slid down his chest, exposing more skin that Dave hadn’t tasted yet, so he ducked his head and ran his tongue over all of it, all the while with Klaus bouncing on top of him. Dave lifted up the front of the skirt again, just to see the stretch of his cock inside his husband and the sight of it overwhelmed him so much he had tears in his eyes when he finally came, spurting inside his lover who rode him still. Klaus came shortly after, thrusting between the soft lining of his wedding dress and the pleasurable girth of Dave’s cock, and he collapsed, spent, into Dave’s arms.

“That was,” he said, panting, “undoubtedly, the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Dave, not in any better shape, pressed their foreheads together and, agreeing, said “I’m so happy I found you.”

“In spite of the constant near-death experiences?”

Dave laughed, pulling Klaus to him. “For you? I’d do it all again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then they go on their honeymoon to the Bermuda Triangle, find out it's haunted, and a Scooby-Doo style adventure ensues. (Dave is Fred, Klaus is Daphne, Ben is Velma, and Renwick and Patterson's ghosts add nothing of value as Shaggy and Scooby)
> 
> 1\. The Second World War starts on September 1, 1939 (at least in the West- many scholars of Asian history consider it to start with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931). Less than a year earlier, Nazi Germany invades Czechoslovakia after being granted permission to annex the Sudetenland, an area of then-Czechoslovakia with a large German-speaking population. It's historically seen as a sort of "last straw" of appeasement for the British government. I think about WWI veterans dealing with their children wanting to join the army 20 years later a lot, but I just wanted the remainder of The Boys to have some Middle Aged Man time together.
> 
> 2\. EUDORA DESERVES BETTER! (It's sort of a reference to the short in the comics where Allison lies about where she's been and it creates two Allisons... maybe her and Five could alter time to make another Eudora who doesn't die?) Idk man, I love her so she's back.
> 
> 3\. Wilfred Owen is killed crossing the Sambre-Oise canal on November 4, 1918, one week before the end of the war. It's said that his mother received the news of his death while the church bells were ringing for the armistice at 11:00am. Sassoon was sad, and was even more sad after Dr. Rivers passed away in the early '20s. He married a woman but had a number of affairs, including one with Ivor Novello and that's pretty damn fabulous. 
> 
> 4\. APPLE BONG STRIKES AGAIN
> 
> 5\. Charles Scott Moncrieff was basically hated by the entire literary community for "seducing" Wilfred Owen, though his official biographer states very firmly that he was 100% in love with him but they had a "failed sexual encounter" sometime. He dies in Italy after leading an interesting life as a translator and as a spy.
> 
> 6\. I just want to reiterate again that yes, I wrote the wedding dress kink meme fill and therefore am only plagiarizing my own work but I've given myself permission so IT'S COOL.
> 
> Thanks again! Sometimes I reblog pics of chickens over at bluebacchus.tumblr.com and make text posts about being drunk on trains

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> EDIT: I can't contain myself and made a blog to add supplemental information (AND THE PLAYLIST). Come watch me flip shit about history. It's over at thevastydeep.home.blog
> 
> Please note that many characters are very loosely based on real people and are borrowed with the utmost respect for their legacy and sacrifice. I've become quite attached to The Boys while writing this and will probably write a monograph on the real North Staffordshire Regiment one day to atone for the sin of using them in Gay Fanfiction. 
> 
> It is worth noting that they were particularly famous for their excessive swearing and I dig that. 
> 
> Title from The Decemberists' The Soldiering Life.


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